No Great Pumpkin for Las Vegas; Further woe for Macao

It was Las Vegas Strip casinos’ bad luck to have Oct. 31 fall on a Saturday, meaning that revenues (particularly from slots) from that weekend won’t be reported until the end of November. Consequently, Strip revenues fell 5% in October, grossing $494 million. Still, “volume trends were largely in line with our estimates,” wrote Deutsche Bank analyst Carlo Santarelli, including a 9% drop in the volume of baccarat play (compounded by a 19.5% decrease in winnings) and a 3% increase in all other table game play, which failed to stave off a 10.5% drop in winnings. (Interestingly, “card games” — i.e., poker — are now being folded into table game results.) JP Morgan analyst Joseph Greff added that “we expect the market to continue experiencing volatility in baccarat play given a likely slowdown in Chinese players.” Strip slot revenues were flat, with 1% less coin-in. Baccarat play was particularly poor when you consider that Strip casinos got taken to the cleaners a year ago, down 35.5%.

Statewide, gaming revenues did better, down only 3%. Downtown Las Vegas fell 6.5% while North Las Vegas slipped 4% and the Boulder Strip also dropped 6.5%. Outlying jurisdictions generally did better, excepting a 3% dip in Lake Tahoe. Reno was up 6%, Laughlin was flat and outer Clark County was up 2.5%. Locals play upstate was especially robust with Elko reporting an 8% increase and Carson Valley a 9% one.

* Whatever the Strip’s problems might be, they paled in comparison to Macao‘s, where casino underachieved Wall Street‘s consensus prediction of a 27.5% decline in November, plummeting 32%. Worse still, any ‘built it and they will come’ impact from Studio City Macau was “largely indiscernible,” according to Santarelli. So, while it was hoped that the curve of Macao’s decline would start to shallow, it continues to be steep. Wall Street analysts are responding with optimism, predicting 25% declines in December. At this point, such an occurrence would seem to border on the miraculous.

Las Vegas Sands led market share for table games, with 24%, followed by Sociedade de Jogos de Macau with 22%, Galaxy Entertainment with 21%, Melco Crown Entertainment with a very disappointing 15%, MGM Grand Paradise and Wynn Macau with 9% each. Macanese operators — and Las Vegas ones could take comfort from a UBS Securities Asia survey which reported, “Base mass gamblers’ awareness of and intention to visit Asian casinos are mediocre, according to our survey. However, the interest in Las Vegas casinos appears high.”

* Dan Gilbert needs to hire a new armored-car service for Greektown Hotel-Casino. An audacious thief simply walked off with $500,000 in broad daylight while the security truck sat outside the casino. His trick? He wore a uniform shirt, leading the truck’s drive to assume he was a security guard. I can think of one person in Detroit who’s probably having to look for a new job this week.

* MGM Resorts International is to be commended for thinking a little outside the box for MGM National Harbor, at least when it comes to cooking. Yes, Jose Andres is a name familiar to Las Vegas foodies but for National Harbor he will turn entire focus to seafood for the first time. Other celebrity chefs haven’t been exposed on the Strip yet. One is Marcus Samuelsson, of Harlem‘s Red Rooster, and the other two are siblings and Maryland natives Bryan and Michael Voltaggio, familiar from Top Chef but collaborating for the first time (on, they just had to have one, a steakhouse). Will sparks fly in the kitchen?