Park MGM to eclipse Bellagio?; Cleveland does not rock

Park MGM isn’t even open yet and Bloomberg has already drunk its bathwater. Think I’m exaggerating? A fluff piece declares that the casino-in-progress will “steal attention from MGM’s highest-end hotel, the Bellagio, as well as the most recent hotel to bring such buzz to Vegas: the eight-year-old Cosmopolitan.” Get a grip. At $550 million it’s a relatively modest investment and nothing that followed Bellagio has threatened that property’s supremacy as a Las Vegas Strip icon, not even CityCenter (which the article erroneously refers to as a shopping mall). While MGM Resorts International execs are forthright about the lack of oomph the Monte Carlo brand had, it at least was evocative of a specific locale. “Park MGM” sounds like someplace you leave your car. Its opening is not so much soft as squishy. The casino and most of the hotel rooms open today, the nightclub, Eataly and the NoMad boutique hotel not until late in 4Q18.

All that being said — and despite the unfortunate moniker — Park MGM has several things going for it. Most of its restaurateurs are new to Las Vegas. One of them, Roy Choi, is targeting locals, at the price of engaging in some wishful thinking: “Locals always stayed off the Strip. Now, with the arena right on the Strip, it’s blurring the lines. It’s feeling like a fully evolved city.” (Jim Murren‘s dream fulfilled?) Pre-NoMad Vegas “was all about what happened after midnight,” says Sydell Group CEO Andrew Zobler, who’s trying to make Park MGM someplace where you’d spend your day. Part of this is cultivating an aura of intimacy in the restaurants and three swimming pools. Another part is the rooms themselves: “they feel residential, with settees in window nooks, separate sleeping and sitting areas, and more than a dozen pieces of art apiece.” It remains to be seen how well the experiment works. Las Vegas doesn’t generally do small-scale well, as attested by the fate of the Lucky Dragon Casino. In the meantime, Bloomberg should double-check before parroting received wisdom like the claim that Las Vegas’ last boom came when Steve Wynn built The Mirage … which indirectly brought us Monte Carlo, right back where we started.

* S&G observes a moment of silence for Venetian executive Mia Banks and wishes a speedy recovery for wounded exec Hector Rodriguez, after the two were gunned down by disgruntled dealer Anthony Wrobel at an employee picnic in Sunset Park. This is the second senseless gun tragedy to impact a Las Vegas casino in less than a year. As the NRA likes to say, guns don’t kill people, other people do … but guns sure make it a lot easier. It’s a sad irony that the Venetian-related shootings come on the heels of the Gaming & Hospitality Active Threat & Crisis Management Symposium, held at Park MGM. Patriot One wouldn’t have been any help out at Sunset Park but this is the kind of technology at which casinos should be looking.

* Wynn Resorts isn’t out of the woods yet with the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. But it got a favorable augury when the MGC ruled it can drop the offending “Wynn” from its Bay State casino license.

* Not even a new electronic-table-game pit (“Synergy”) could prevent Jack Cleveland from being the only Ohio casino to post a revenue decline last month and from registering its worst April ever. We guess “28 electronic play stations, giant video displays and a live DJ” don’t overcome whatever growing aversion Clevelanders have toward Dan Gilbert‘s flagship casino. (And it’s been a long, long time since we’ve heard him talk about succeeding the temporary facility with a permanent one.) “The addition of Synergy Table Games builds on this commitment by adding a revolutionary arena-style adventure that has been a hit with Clevelanders looking for a fun and entertaining nightlife experience,” said exec Mark Tricano, in defiance of the evidence, adding, “Specific to April’s overall performance, our business is healthier than ever and continues to grow. In the month of April we saw a lot of Clevelandars that got lucky at Jack Cleveland Casino,” he added in an unfortunate double-entendre.