Today’s gaming numbers out of Missouri are so depressing I hardly feel like sharing them. Year over year, only two casinos were revenue-positive. One was — no surprise — River City, in St. Louis. The other was — mild surprise — Harrah’s North Kansas City. Back east, Pinnacle St. Charles led the market overall but its percentage drop essentially negated the gains made by the same company’s River City. Penn National Gaming took a bruising at Hollywood Casino St. Louis, down 12%. Isle of Capri Casinos‘ Lady Luck riverboat in Caruthersville also dipped 12%. In the Kansas City market, Harrah’s was up 7.5% while Argosy Riverside fell 9%. Pinnacle Kansas City dropped 7% and Isle of Capri Kansas City was off by 3%. Nonetheless, Isle of Capri was 21% up statewide for the month, thanks to $4 million in revenue from Isle of Capri Cape Girardeau. The latter wasn’t open during October last year, otherwise Missouri’s dropoff would have been just 2% (on a same-store basis, it was double that).
Massachusetts was blindsided by the news that it will have a Class II casino to deal with — one that could reduce the amount of taxes the rival Mashpee Wampanoags have to pay. This morning, the Aquinnah Tribe (aka Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head) revealed that it had gotten the green light from the National Indian Gaming Commission to open an electronic bingo parlor on Martha’s Vineyard. Score one for the hare instead of the tortoise. State Senate Majority Leader Stanley Rosenberg (D, right) was dumbfounded: “Are you serious? I’m speechless. After everything and all we’ve been working on, this comes as a huge surprise … Oh, my goodness. I have to go do some reading really fast. I could not have anticipated this. Today is not April Fool’s right?” Someone’s already dubbed it “Caesars Preppy Palace.” It will certainly enjoy a ritzy location, one where the average home price is $1.4 million.
No, it’s not and the both the statehouse and Gov. Deval Patrick got caught with their pants down. They held to a belief that the Aquinnah tribe had forfeited its gaming rights … a view not shared by the Obama administration. As long as the Aquinnah stick to Class II, there’s nothing the state can do about it. However, they intend to petition Patrick for negotiations to move up to Class III … and if that happens, Massachusetts will have one more Vegas-style casino than it intended. As Rosenberg said, may we live in interesting times.
That Didn’t Take Long Dept. The ink was barely dry on Lawrence Ho‘s Vladivostok casino venture, the paperwork for which closed last week. Then one of his minority shareholders, Oleg Drozdov, was busted by authorities for “misconduct” on an unrelated project. It just goes to show (again) how fraught with peril Russian investment can be.
The Missouri numbers tell me that the Harrah’s name meant something in St. Louis but Hollywood does not. My experience is that Hollywood has penny-ante promotions and runs boring casinos. Harrah’s was never great, but it did have Total Rewards.