Pennsylvania gives thanks; Aqueduct, superstar

This has been a terrible fortnight for S&G but, hey, we’ve got some good news from Pennsylvania. Last month’s gambling revenues were reported this morning and they’re up 12%, thanks mostly to the growing popularity of table games. (Atlantic City, beware.) As for what might be called the “Aqueduct Effect,” of which I had grown skeptical, here it is: Sands Bethlehem‘s slot revenues are on pace to come up maybe $4 million-$5 million short of Wall Street projections. That’s it. In terms of growth (40%), if not sheer dollar volume ($54 million), Keystone State tables had a blockbuster month. The aberration was Mohegan Sun Pocono Downs, which was 1.5% million off last year’s pace — flat, in unadjusted dollars — which seemingly betokens a combination of bad marketing and much worse luck. In terms of percentage gain, The Meadows racino “only” rose 12%, while Sands was up an astronomical 107%, also enjoying the biggest dollar-for-dollar increase, too. Other than Parx Casino (up 59% and tops overall with almost $11 million), the high-jumpers included newbie SugarHouse (32%, passing Harrah’s Chester Downs in dollars won) and erstwhile laggard Rivers Casino, up 46%. Throw in double-digit gains in slot revenue at both casinos and it was a good month to be Neil Bluhm, who’s got the Midas Touch these days.

Mohegan Sun partly redeemed its dismal table performance with a 12% upsurge in slot revenue. Harrah’s was one of only four properties to register declines at the slots, but a 32% spring in table win compensated literally fivefold. Sands, however, is going to be the year’s success story, having blown past Harrah’s to become the second-highest-grossing casino in Pennsylvania, after being in the middle of the pack a year ago. Nobody’s catch Parx, which will gross almost a half-billon dollars in 2011, but if Sands continues to shrug off Genting‘s new casino at Aqueduct, it’s going to have some impressive bragging rights … and might finally pencil out at somewhere near the revenues Sheldon Adelson predicted for it when it was a slots-only place.

Paging Andrew Lloyd Webber. None of this is meant to pooh-pooh the performance of Resorts World New York unto itself. So remunerative has the Gotham casino been that CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets headlined its report, NYC casino superstar, on the strength of the rasino’s $41 million debut. (For context, that’s as much as longer-established Parx pulled in last month.) This, writes analyst Jon Oh, “implies a daily net win of $551/unit,” not to mention “the considerable depth of the New York City market.”

Why is that so impressive? After taking into account Resorts World NY’s massive VLT inventory of 2,486 machines, it’s per-machine isn’t just well above average for the Empire State. It’s considerably better than — to use Oh’s selected comparisons — the average casino in Illinois, Pennsylvania or Atlantic City, as well as Venetian Macao, Wynncore and Venelazzo. In other words, to see headier numbers per machine you’d have to go to Marina Bay Sands or, better still, Wynn Macau. This puts an exclamation point on an upward trend in 2011 New York State gambling revenues and, when you add Genting’s $380 million licensing fee, means Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) will be able to book $1.1 billion in casino-generated dollars. (Not to mention the lovely collateral effect for VLT makers International Game Technology, WMS Industries and Wall Street darling Bally Technologies.) Small wonder Cuomo’s been making vague noises about upgrading the state to Class III gambling and soon. As for those companies who merely feinted at Aqueduct but pulled away — and you know who you are — it’s a mistake your shareholders are certain to rue now.