If Sin City wasn’t chastened by the Coronavirus pandemic, it has certainly been cheapened by it. And not in a good way. Returning customers can expect to pay more for a diminished experience. Case in point, Caesars Entertainment. Not content to evict roughly a dozen four-wall shows (including sacred icon Wayne Newton), Caesars applied a kick to the posterior in the form of thousands of dollars in load-out charges. As Vital Vegas author Scott Roeben put it, “Insult, meet injury.” The impost was levied on Wednesday and (after it went over like a lead balloon), Caesars COO Anthony Carano lifted it on Friday. But the PR damage had been done. Caesars looked like a bunch of money-grubbing cutpurses. “ElDiablo” indeed!
As John Katsilometes points out, rendering unto Caesars, the affected shows were contractually on the hook for the money. But they’d been without income, he continues, for 15 months and were hardly in the best position to absorb Caesars’ surcharge. Several four-wall shows remain in business in the Roman Empire, or what’s left of it, but CZR is definitely going the entertainment-lite route, part of a new austerity regime (in both senses of the word). One of the biggest losers in this saga is producer John Bentham, who had the ill-judgment to launch Friends: The Musical Parody in the teeth of Covid-19 and eked out six performances before the Great Shutdown took hold. Now his show is homeless. Still, it was Bentham who put producers’ case best, telling Katsilometes, “We understand the contract. But the rub here is, we never had a chance to plan for this, save money for this. It’s like, you closed it, you chose not to reopen and you’re charging us to leave?”
The Roman Empire wasn’t the only one using its tenants as mat on which to wipe its feet. The Artisan Hotel instituted an insidious new form of resort fee: a $3.95/day “energy surcharge” (atop a $19.95 resort fee). Unlike some of the preposterous restaurant fees that have been tried in Vegas, this isn’t refundable and you can’t opt out. It’s probably just a matter of time before Las Vegas Strip executives smite their brows, exclaiming, “Why didn’t we think of that?!?” Perhaps they will also follow the lead of JW Marriott Los Cabos and penalize you financially for redeeming loyalty points.
Finally, in case you thought that the news that Station Casinos would be retiring its buffets was just analyst speculation, here it is straight from the source. Quoth CEO Frank Fertitta III, “We’re going to put the dollars into the place where we make money. It’s going to be a focus on slot machines and table games, our primary business. We’ll have several restaurant options. We will not have a buffet.” Sounds pretty categorical to us. Added CFO Stephen Cootey, “I’m going to say ex-buffet because obviously, it would be down year-over-year because of the buffet, which I think we can fairly say will never return.” As one customer put it, “That really sucks.”
Before we leave Caesars in the rearview mirror, industry scuttlebutt has it that the William Hill brand, newly acquired, will be ditched in favor of some Caesars-generic moniker. Simply put, this is idiocy. William Hill books vastly outperformed Caesars-branded ones. William Hill has tremendous brand equity and traction with sports bettors. Why on Earth would you kick the name to the curb? Some top honchos at Caesars appear to be thinking with their posteriors.
To recap one of Friday’s breaking stories in greater detail, Peninsula Pacific Entertainment will have by far the largest tranche of casino gambling in Virginia. Not only does it operate the Colonial Downs racino and a number of slot routes, it’s behind the stalking horse that is Urban One, which was just awarded the right (pending certain voter approval) to build a casino in Richmond. We figured Urban One to be the eventual winner but the them-the-that-has-gets aspect of the deal is discouraging—not least to any competitors who expected a level playing field. In its favor, Urban One is a made-in-Richmond success story, a media giant, albeit one in need of a gaming partner. Enter Peninsula Pacific. Also-ran Cordish Gaming had some area ties and made a convincing pitch with regard to African-American co-ownership. But it lacked the (tepid) political support that Urban One had. The latter’s stock rallied 60% on the good news to a still-affordable $9.56/share. Get in on the ground floor, dear reader!
Neither final bidder was as hapless as Bally’s Corp. Despite having flashed the most cash, Bally’s made the mind-boggling mistake of choosing to site its casino project right next to a historic graveyard filled with the remains of enslaved and emancipated Black people. Can you spell faux pas, Bally’s? While the Urban One casino lacks some visual allure, as proposed, it would bring 100,000 square feet of gaming, 200 additional hotel rooms and a 3,000-seat theater to the Richmond area. As Global Gaming Business notes, Urban One would be the first African-American-owned casino since the demise of Don Barden, a criteria that put it over the top with the selection committee. “It’s important that black folks begin to have a piece of the pie in these industries,” said one of the decision makers.
Jottings: Japanese casinos continue to be a slow-motion catastrophe. GGB reports that two major operators have pulled out of Nippon, leaving Melco Resorts & Entertainment and Osaka-bound MGM Resorts International as the only bidders of consequence remaining … Amidst a generally blah set of room rates for June 13-19, MGM’s Strip properties actually nudged up 1% midweek. This could easily be a nodal point for future Las Vegas business bookings … For the moment Blackstone Group is out of the bidding for Crown Resorts. Its billet-doux was refused by Crown, which continues to bat its eyelashes at a bigger offer from Star Entertainment … Don’t book that flight to Athens to play at Mohegan Gaming & Entertainment‘s Hellenikon casino just yet. MGE expects the megaresort to take three years to complete, perhaps not until 2026 (by which time Japan will probably still be mulling casino bids).
7 Stars and Diamond members may take their Caesars play elsewhere due to show closing and not reopening Diamond club lounges which are one reason many played for the higher levels.