Atlantic City sparks controversy; Resort fee change at Cosmo

Faced with a 9% drop in operating profit at Atlantic City casinos, pundits are squaring off as to whether this means doom for the laggards. Analyst Tony Marino told The Press of Atlantic City that it “might be wise to curb our enthusiasm about the long-term continuation of positive current casino trends.” He predicted an upward surge next July but “between now and then, the current four-month negative revenue trends among most of the seven [incumbent] operators will also likely continue until next summer and perhaps beyond. In other words, the hoped-for expansion of Atlantic City’s tourist market demand will continue to lag considerably behind the expansion in casino supply triggered by the two new casinos. … If Atlantic City’s past history has taught us to be realistic, we should anticipate that total year-round demand may not be sufficient to keep all nine casinos profitable by 2020,” he concluded.

Stockton University pundit Rummy Pandit called himself “pleasantly surprised” by the year/year revenue increases, saying “There’s new market segments coming into the city. There could be some novelty but I don’t necessarily believe it will taper off. The market is going to continue to grow because we’re offering a destination resort.”

Those pushing the glass-half-empty narrative point to the addition of sports betting and the continued success of Internet gambling as masking an ongoing deterioration. But if casino revenue is increasing via those streams, where’s the problem? Bueller … Bueller?

* The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas is backing off parking fees, sort of. They will now be rolled into resort fees. As for those who are probably exempt from resort fees, the Cosmo is incepting private-jet service for whales. My only question is, What took them so long?

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* Sports books are slowly coming on line in Pennsylvania. First up was Harrisburg, where Penn National Gaming opened one at Hollywood Casino. Second was Pittsburgh, where Rivers Casino weighed into the fray. Speculation is that SugarHouse Casino will be third, as it shares ownership with Rivers Casino (how Neil Bluhm got casinos in Pennsylvania’s two biggest markets is a question whose answer has more to do with Democratic Party ‘juice’ than merit as a casino operator). Given Rivers’ proximity to Heinz Field, footballs fans can stop by the casino to lay down a wager on their way to being disappointed by the Pittsburgh Steelers yet again (and I say that as a long-suffering Steeler fan). Meanwhile, in Brazil, the National Congress has a two-year window to legalize sports betting.

* Kudos to Wynncore for embracing smart-speaker technology, with an installed base of 4,748 units. However, Wynn Resorts “doesn’t mention any security precautions it plans to take for the Echo, like automatically wiping the device’s history between guests.” And there’s always the fear that Big Brother could be listening in via those 4,748 little microphones.