If today’s numbers from the Nevada Gaming Control Board indicate that December was good for business — especially on the Las Vegas Strip (up 4% … 7% if you take baccarat out of the equation) — January ought to have been great. Why? Because Dec. 31 fell upon a Saturday … meaning that all those New Year’s Eve weekend slot revenues won’t show up for another month. (The contents of hoppers would have been tallied on Jan. 2, per standard operating procedure.) As Deutsche Bank‘s Carlo Santarelli points out, slot hold was low but it’s almost always low that time of year, due to industry accounting practices. Having an additional weekend day last December obviously didn’t hurt the numbers either. J.P. Morgan analyst Joseph Greff predicts January revenue growth of around 5%, although it’s not clear if he’s referring simply to the Strip or the whole state of Nevada, which was up 2% in December.
Even without those New Year’s Eve numbers, slot revenue rose 6% on larger handle, the ninth such coin-in increase out of the last 10 months. Despite dramatically higher (11%) hold, table drop and win were up but modestly. That basically means the whales won at baccarat — with casinos raking in 4% less — while win at all other table games grew 8%. The whales’ good fortune put a damper on the end of 4Q11, which had otherwise seen the house take players to the cleaners, winning 26% more than in 4Q10 on the same volume of play and marginally lower hold.
Speaking of “damp,” that’d describe the Vegas locals market, down 2% — still much preferable to the previous December’s 12% declivity. It blunted a final-quarter recovery trend of 4%. Santarelli reports Boyd Gaming doing slightly better than the industry average in Vegas-locals business. The vaguely defined “Balance of Clark County” sector saved the day (+4%), what with Boulder Strip being off 7%, Laughlin dipping 8%, and Downtown and North Las Vegas both getting hammered to the tune of 11%. All outstate jurisdictions were an aggregate +7% (sparked by — praise be! — 12% growth in Reno), including the most important economic barometer, Wendover. I so miss the days when the Control Board busted out separate numbers for Wendover. If those casinos catch a cold, Nevada gets pneumonia.
Looking at the year in review, we can clearly designate June 2010 as the moment when Nevada‘s casino economy hit bottom, bringing in $764 million. There have been a couple of dips since then but no ensuing month out of the last 18 has seen anywhere so anemic a tally. The state closed out 2011 up 3%, led of course by the Strip (5%) and, less predictably, the Boulder Strip (3%). The jumpy Lake Tahoe market had a near-flat year overall, -1% after being down 6% in 2010, and monthly ups and downs canceled each other out in Downtown and North LV, both flat. Of all places, Elko was the stablest market in the Silver State but Laughlin needs to worry: 11 months of negative comparisons and a 4% revenue decline. Small wonder that Tropicana Entertainment is letting it be known that the River Palms (left) is on the market and that austerity measures such as dealer-less table games will be implemented. That would certainly explain the barrenness at the River Palms of which LVA subscribers periodically complain.
Reno was also down 4% but ended the year on a positive trend. Only those two cities and Lake Tahoe had the invidious distinction of posting two straight years of negative comparisons. Pedantically speaking, Carson Valley (-1% in 2011) finished 2010 a fraction of a percentage point off 2009’s pace but we’ll give those folks a mulligan. They could probably use it.
Hey, Steve Wynn! Things not looking so good in Foxboro? Snobbish selectmen got you down? You could buy as much as 700 virgin acres of land, richly fertilized, just a stone’s throw down the interstate from Worcester and enviably close to Providence, R.I. — split between Auburn and Oxford, Massachusetts. Seriously. Sheldon Adelson is just plain addled these days, so now is the time to strike! You can thank S&G later.
Doubling down in N.H. Meantime, further up the road in New Hampshire, the Lege still can’t make up its mind on casino legalization. The number of slot houses proposed has already doubled and now doubled again — to four. Buzzkill-in-chief Gov. John Lynch (D, left) is still down in the mouth about casinos, lawmakers can’t must the votes for a veto override, so House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Stephen Stepanek (R) is vamping, sending the bill back to committee and calling for public hearings. Stepanek’s been tinkering with the bill, which would now permit two Class II licensees with 2,000 VLTs apiece. Also, a staggered phase-in which would have given Cannery Casino Resorts parent company a temporary monopoly has been stricken. Given ongoing developments just to the south, the anxiety of pro-gambling Granite State lawmakers has become palpable.
