Missouri misery; Revel inches upward

Sometimes I feel Gary Loveman‘s pain — and that of Anthony Sanfilippo, Virginia McDowell, Peter Carlino … When they look at the kind of numbers states like Missouri are generating, they must want to shake a fist and say, “Gamble, damn you!” At least five years into the Great Recession, Wall Street tells itself comforting bedtime stories of “pent-up demand” while consumers clutch their pocketbooks as tightly as ever, at least when it comes to gambling. On a same-store basis, The State of Misery was well-named last month, down 10%. It’s no wonder that Pinnacle Entertainment‘s Sanfilippo (right) was so quick to put Lumiere Place on the block to placate the Federal Trade Commission: Who wouldn’t trade a casino that grossed $12.5 million (-13%) last month to get one (Ameristar St. Charles, pictured above, down 5% in June) that grossed $22 million instead? Throw in Ameristar Kansas City and its $17 million (-10%) and Pinnacle stands to gain far more than it loses.

It was a terrible month, though, for Penn National Gaming. Not only is it reeling from a big drop in business aboard Alton Belle, in Illinois, itsrecently acquired Hollywood St. Louis plunged 24%. But Argosy Riverside was flat for the month, showing itself to be immune from the marketing malaise that has afflicted so many Penn-owned casinos of late. If you back out Isle of Capri Cape Girardeau, the Isle of Capri Casinos flotilla is down 6%, but that’s nothing. Caesars Entertainment‘s sale of the former Harrah’s Maryland Heights was a terrible mistake, plunging the company to fifth-place standing in the Show-Me and depriving it of $18 million in revenue last month alone. Caesars’ share of its two Ohio casinos in May came to $8 million in revenue — and June was worse yet. The cream of the jest would be if Loveman decided to get back into Missouri … and had to buy Lumiere Place to do so.

Also feeling dropsical were our friends in Atlantic City, whose casinos took another 13% dip last month. The best that Joseph Greff at J.P. Morgan could find for a silver lining was a mere 7% falloff in table game revenues at Borgata, versus 16% citywide. But there were a few other hopeful notes. Resorts International was flat, year over year. And, despite a 23% dropoff from last year, Revel shows signs of momentum, creeping past the Golden Nugget ($11 million, now in second-from-last position) and just a few decimal points behind Resorts ($11.6 million vs. $12 million). It’s got a ways to go before catching the Atlantic Club ($13 million). It figures that Colony Capital would be down to its last casino before it figured out this weird, funky “gaming” thing.

As usual, Trump Plaza is the dregs of the marketplace, grossing a crummy $7 million, down 24%). And the Caesars quartet came within a whisker (Harrah’s Atlantic City‘s -9.5% slippage) of double-digit declines across the board. Years of pettiness and infighting (epitomized by Donald Trump) are causing everyone on the Boardwalk to pay dearly now.

Congratulations to three MGM Resorts International executives who got new, loftier titles (and, we hope, corresponding pay increases today). Two of them date back to the Mirage Resorts era, before MGM engorged Steve Wynn‘s company. Alan Feldman is upped to vice president of global government and industry affairs (read: lobbyist), while Jenn Michaels is boosted to senior vice president of public relations, with an emphasis on new-media strategies. The one non-Mirage veteran is Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications Clark Dumont, a relative newbie, having joined MGM two years ago. A variety of PR and internal- and external communications departments will now report to him. S&G congratulates all three on their new portfolios and wishes them luck.