Executives at MGM Mirage haven’t exactly changed their tune but they’ve tweaked the lyrics a bit. Whereas they used to predict a second-half upturn in 2010, now they say 2011 is the magic number and that they’ve got the numbers to prove it. Although convention attendance is still in a slump, MGM projects a 23.5% increase in convention room nights next year. CEO Jim Murren (left) adds that conventioneers are paying “2007 prices,” although I hope that the mere invocation of 2007 doesn’t cause casino execs to start lighting cigars with $100 bills again.
According to J.P. Morgan analysts, Strip room rates were modestly better in the second quarter and are showing double-digit improvement (on weekdays, anyway) for 3Q10 … much of that driven by Wynn Resorts and Las Vegas Sands, it should be noted. This doesn’t come close to erasing the reverses of 2009 but it’s surely better than we were expecting. MGM is also helped, oddly, by the unplanned affordability of CityCenter rooms. Whereas Aria was meant to out-price Bellagio wire to wire, it’s now 0-for-13 during weekday periods surveyed by JPM and 2-for-13 on weekend ones.
Optimism is a relative thing, at least in Illinois, whose casino receipts were -2.2% in May. The $121 million statewide gross is anemic; the riverboat has sunk, so to speak, but at least it seems to have stopped taking on water. Casino Rock Island (+8%) bucks the trend. Among the factors going for it are A) the newest casino facility in the state, B) a location right smack along side an interstate highway, C) easy access and D) ample parking. That goes a long way toward explaining why, despite Illinois’ smoking ban, Casino Rock Island hasn’t lost players to neighboring Iowa, despite nearby competition.
Deranged. Deluged. Psychopathic. Those epithets and many more come to mind when reading one man’s cold-blooded rationalization for murdering a Trump Taj Mahal executive. The perpetrator won’t be eligible for parole until he’s 88, which is still too soon in my book. And what, I wonder, became of the security guard who stood aside and allowed the shooting to occur? Was he charged? Sued? Sacked? What good is security if any crank can walk right past it and plug somebody three times at close range?
