Good news from Atlantic City; F-blew: This is the end

OK, so the Boardwalk was down 2% last month but, on a same-store basis (i.e., minus Atlantic Club), business was up 3%, given a shove over the top by $11 million in online-casino revenue, which is looking like a difference maker, if not the Holy Grail of gambling. Borgata, up 13%, played lucky at tables and slots alike. The table-hold gods also looked with favor upon Caesars Atlantic City, up 17% in revenues. Unfortunately for Caesars Entertainment‘s four-pack of Atlantic City casinos, all the rest were revenue-negative: -12% at Bally’s, -10% at Harrah’s and -20% at Showboat. (No prizes for guessing which one Gary Loveman is likeliest to close.) Trump Plaza scraped the bottom again, grossing $4.4 million for a 26% decline.

Up-and-comers were Revel (55%; $12.5 million) and Golden Nugget (40%, $13 million). Posting smaller — but still encouraging — increases were the Tropicana and Resorts Atlantic City. Rounding out the picture was Trump Taj Mahal (-19%, $18 million). Remarked Deutsche Bank analyst Carlo Santarelli, “We note that the 18.3% hold accrued almost entirely to Borgata (22.5% table hold) and Caesars (31.8% table hold). Furthermore, the table hold result was the highest on record for the market since June of 2000 when the market table hold was 18.5%.” (Citywide, table drop and coin-in were down, however.) It’s still too soon to pop the champagne corks but Atlantic City appears to be turning a corner. With one or two fewer bottom-feeders dragging down the market it might be back in shape to contend with Philadelphia. Online gaming revenue fell from $12 million in March to $11 million in April, but S&G sets relatively little story by sequential comparison unless no other metric is available.

After being slow on the draw on a few acquisition opportunities, Churchill Downs has finally cleared leather and drawn a bead on East Greenbush, New York. There it will team with Saratoga Casino & Raceway. Their candidacy is premised on a $300 million “world-class resort” in an area where the minimum investment is $135 million. Churchill Downs President Bill Carstanjen (left) could have been reading right off Gov. Andrew Cuomo‘s talking points where he said he’d “create reliable revenues for the entire capital region, generate thousands of jobs, and be best positioned to keep New York gaming dollars in New York.”

“Their strategy has been to grow by acquiring relatively new casinos or developing new properties. You haven’t seen them try to enter Nevada or New Jersey,” Imperial Capital analyst Gregg Klein said of Churchill Downs. “Instead they’re going for more remote, protected markets. Certainly Albany fits that perfectly.” Churchill Downs may not be the 800-lb. gorilla in the battle for New York, but it’s a 500-lb. primate, for sure. Meanwhile, Albany-area rival E23, brainstormed by David Flaum, promises it will have an operating partner soon.

Fontainbleau is about to get a lot shorter as workers dismantle the construction crane that has sat, mostly unused, atop its top for, lo, these many years. This is the clearest sign yet that owner Carl Icahn‘s tripartite endgame for the property is DY-NO-MITE! A third-party owner is selling the crane to Arizona developers and, of course, Icahn has long since stripped F-blew of anything he could peddle to other area casinos. Icahn was characteristically mum but Ironworkers Local 433 was plenty vocal, picketing the site because scab labor is being used to get the crane down.