Although visitation to Las Vegas was down 2% in August, room revenues and rates were both up 3% (with a hotel room costing you $125/night on average) and occupancy at 91%. JP Morgan analyst Joseph Greff credited the Floyd Mayweather-Conor McPherson fight with driving the 
RevPAR and ADR numbers. Ditto a 2.5% uptick in convention attendance. Convention attendance for the year is tracking 6% ahead of 2016. Lower visitor traffic notwithstanding, Nevada gaming revenue was up 15% and the Strip’s rose 21%. That’s impressive, even knowing that August of last year showed a decline. Baccarat players wagered heavily and played most unluckily, with the house winning 38% more. So it was at other table games, with 7% more bet and 18% more lost to The Man.
Strip slot handle was up 3.5% but the one-armed bandits were tight, with players losing 6.5% more than last year. By comparison, coming off a monster August 2016, locals casinos were only up 6% overall. Downtown was up 13.5%, Laughlin improved 7%, the Boulder Strip was flat and North Las Vegas only eked out a 2% improvement. Outlying Clark County casinos rose 12%, Reno posted a 12% gain, too, while both Lake Tahoe and Elko were up 7%. No jurisdiction in Nevada had a revenue-negative month.
* If you’re planning to attend the opening of MGM Grand Cotai, don’t call your travel agent yet. MGM Resorts International has postponed the megaresort’s debut, implying that damage from 
Typhoon Hato was the culprit. The new target date — January 29, 2018 — will still give MGM two weeks to work out the kinks before Chinese New Year. The budget has crept up $130 million, to $3.4 billion. Wrote Deutsche Bank‘s Carlo Santarelli, “we believe the delay is likely to cause some frustration. As we have previously noted, Macau stocks tend to rally into openings, thus, the delay pushes the potential stock rally into calendar 2018.” Still, he projects at least an 8.5% return on investment in a chastened Macanese market.
In a related story, the Macao government is looking at new casino controls and Big Gaming won’t like them. For one thing, they’ll be obligated to reimburse underage players for money lost 
at gambling. Another new proviso under consideration would fine underage or self-excluded players $125 every time they are caught. And croupiers, pit managers, casino tellers, dealers, and public relations staff who go on the casino floor during their off-time will be fined anywhere from $125 to 10 times that amount. Mind you, these are merely proposals at this point (although the Macanese government rarely floats an idea it doesn’t intend to implement) and we sure to hear loud cries of dismay from the casinos, as they try to fight City Hall.
* MGM is inescapable this week. While we agree with MGM legal counsel Uri Clinton that an MGM casino in Bridgeport would be superior to the box o’ slots planned for East Windsor by the Mohegan and Mashantucket Pequot tribes, Bridgeport leaders and citizens are taking a premature and potentially foolish-looking victory lap, as though they were celebrating a fait accompli. “That is the traditional, smoky room casino that nobody wants to go to,” Clinton said of the East Windsor satellite casino, metaphorically wrinkling his nose.
Clinton has co-opted New Haven Mayor Toni Harp with the promise of a training facility and Unite-Here with a theoretical union pact. Harp carps that the state is sending less and less slot revenue from the tribes to her city and says of MGM, “The other thing that makes it interesting is that they think it is a business model that will grow.” “No more legislative action needs to be taken. They can move ahead,” riposted state Sen. Tim Larson, who accused MGM of “flagrantly lying.” And state Sen. Cathy Often, who counts the gaming tribes among her constituents, said Connecticut should stick with the bird in the hand, doubting that MGM could or would make good on its promises. Barring federal intervention against the East Windsor project, MGM would appear to be checkmated.
* If you work at Atlantis Paradise, look out: The Typhoid Mary of gaming, Audrey Oswell, has been tapped to run the resort. As we wrote of Oswell six years ago, “Since being forced out of Caesars Atlantic City by Park Place Entertainment, Oswell’s resumé has taken a pummeling. She left Resorts Atlantic City just as Colony Capital was beginning to mismanage it into insolvency, then leapfrogged to Cosmopolitan (foreclosed) and then from the deck of that sinking ship to [Fontainebleau]. If it weren’t for bad luck, she’d have no luck at all.” It could be worse. Atlantis is owned by Brookfield Asset Management, which also owns the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, so Brookfield could have brought Oswell’s bad karma back to Sin City. Oswell’s elevation to top job at Atlantis follows hard upon the sacking of Howard Karawan. One media report suggests that the reason for the latter’s departure was that he “threw shade” on competitor Baha Mar during the Hurricane Irma crisis.
