New look at Bally’s; Ohio hits a speed bump

Our East Coast correspondent visited Bally’s Atlantic City to check out its revisions and we’ll let his photos tell the story:

“If you count the the new Player’s Club carpet, the high limit room carpet, the old carpet to the parking garage, the new carpet around the new lobby bar, along with the four below, that’s a total of eight colors/patterns of carpet on the main Bally’s floor.”

Finally, here is the al fresco pub, The Yard:

Best wishes from the seaside!

Since it is usually a pace car for gambling in the United States, the latest numbers from Ohio suggest that the bloom may be coming off the rose of gaming’s 2021-2 recovery. Revenues, while still well above 2019 levels, were 3.5% down from May 2021 for an overall gross of $201.5 million. Even seemingly impervious MGM Northfield Park was down 2.5%, coming in at $24.5 million and still comfortably at the top of the heap. Jack Cleveland, finally living up to its promise, was relatively close behind, flat at $22.5 million. Then came Hollywood Columbus with $22 million (-5%) and Hard Rock Cincinnati, defying the market with an 11% leap to $21 million (close proximity to casino-denied Kentuckians is obviously not hurting its cause). Hollywood Toledo logged in with $20.5 million (-5%), infinitesimally behind Scioto Downs‘ $20.5 million and change (-3.5%).

Jack Thistledown stumbled badly, falling 17% to $16 million, while Miami Valley Gaming slipped 4% to $19 million. Belterra Park was down 6% to $8 million, while neither of Penn National Gaming‘s outlying racinos was immune from the negative economic forces. Hollywood Dayton slid 9% to $13 million and Hollywood Mahoning Valley dipped 2% for $14 million.