Atlantic City casinos leapt 17% from March 2021, grossing $216.5 million. Except for Tropicana Atlantic City, which was flat at $19 million, almost everyone posted relatively impressive gains. Borgata‘s $55 million (+18%) predictably topped the market, while Hard Rock Atlantic City (shown) surged 28% to $39 million. Ocean Casino Resort was up 26% to $25.5 million. Harrah’s Resort performed best of the Caesars Entertainment threesome, climbing 12.5% to $20 million, while Caesars Atlantic City dipped 4.5% down to $18.5 million. Bunched together at the bottom were Bally’s Atlantic City, Resorts Atlantic City and Golden Nugget, in that order. Bally’s seems to be showing momentum, moving up two notches in the hierarchy, gaining 36% on a gross of $13.5 million, while Resorts notched $13 million, an 8% hike and the Nugget brought up the rear with $12.5 million, a 16% climb nevertheless.
I-gaming was lucrative, too, to the tune of $141 million. Borgata led market share with 29.5%, followed by Golden Nugget (27%), Resorts Digital (22%), then way down to Tropicana (7.5%), Caesars (7%), Hard Rock (4%), Ocean (2%) and Bally’s (1%). Considering how much Bally’s Corp. CEO Lee Fenton has staked on the digital sphere we hope he has some new tricks up his sleeve. Sports betting eked out $66.5 million winnings from $1 billion-plus handle, of which New Jersey breaks out no operator-by-operator results. Sorry.
We’re pretty sure why former Indiana lawmaker Brent Waltz got such a sweet deal from federal prosecutors. He was probably going to roll on disgraced Spectacle Entertainment ex-exec John Keeler for orchestrating a scheme to funnel illegal campaign contributions to lawmakers. Keeler’s going to get off easy, too, paying a $14,350 fine and pleading out to one count of filing a false tax return. The feds had a chance to make an example of corporate crooks here and we think they dropped the ball.
The going just got tougher for Hard Rock International in Chicago. It lost the potential support of Alderwoman Pat Dowell, who said she couldn’t support a casino that “would be dropped into an existing, well-established family community in the Prairie District of Chicago’s South Loop.” The being said, a Windy City megaresort “is warranted and needed,” according to Dowell—just not in her backyard. With Alderman Walter Burnett sitting on the fence about Bally’s Tribune (pictured) and aldermen lining up against it and Neil Bluhm‘s Rivers 78, the casino has become a political hot potato. Few oppose it outright, they just want it somewhere else. Burnett invoked the old “silent majority” argument to justify the Bally’s project and that theoretical majority has been quiet indeed, not making itself heard at early April listening sessions.
Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez, for his part, accused Dowell of being in cahoots with Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) to foist a casino on his ward. Lightfoot, after all, has been the beneficiary of george donations from the Bluhm family, prompting Sigcho-Lopez to say, “The relationships that Mayor Lightfoot has with this particular casino operator certainly has our community concerned.” Objections to Bally’s, meanwhile, include the familiar one that it will worsen an already-bad traffic situation and that it wastes economic redevelopment on a neighborhood that already has it, a pointed dig at Sigcho-Lopez’s ward.
Last week the American Gaming Association made seemingly hundreds of headlines by prodding Attorney General Merrick Garland to crack down on unregulated, offshore sports books and “make it a priority to act … to protect American consumers, crack down on illegal operators, and enforce federal regulations.” Some weren’t having it, noting that consumers are not numbered among the President Bill Miller‘s constituency, just industry members. Or, as someone cracked wise on Twitter, “Thank you AGA for being noble and protecting me from the offshore books who commit the terrible crime of giving me -110 on a total …” Someone else pointed out that legitimate BetMGM wouldn’t let him stake more than $25.04 on a prop bet.
We see the AGA’s point of view but others accuse it of selective outrage, arguing that it is motivated more by protecting the bottom line of regulated books than by altruism for the bettor. Writes columnist Jeff Edelstein, “Offshore books do enjoy those competitive advantages. They can be—or at least seem to be—sketchy. I’ve never once placed a bet offshore. It’s not for me. I want my bets to be legal, and I like the idea of having legal recourse should something happen … But for the AGA to step in and loudly demand action against the illegal operators—without asking for the legal books to stop their tactics that do nothing but drive bettors back offshore— s pretty lousy. Really, it’s anti-consumer.” He argues that sports bettors could form their own association to lobby for a more-level playing field or, better yet, for the AGA to bring consumers into the fold. Since it asserts it is acting in the bettor’s best interests, why not? We pause—hopefully not too long—in anticipation of an answer.
Jottings: Making fun of Macao‘s casino revenue these days is like tripping a dwarf. Mass-market winnings plummeted 67% last quarter from 2019 and VIP play was almost nonexistent, down 87%. Interestingly, casinos are removing a modest number of tables and adding many more slots, not traditionally a Macanese strong point … Circa Sports is expanding its reach into northern Nevada. When long a-borning Legends Bay Casino opens in Sparks, its sports book will be a Derek Stevens operation … Phil Ruffin was a loser in court this week. A lawsuit against the insurer of Circus Circus wouldn’t reimburse Ruffin for business losses and Ninth Circuit judges agreed, saying the clown house had suffered no physical damage from Covid-19 … Saratoga Casino Holdings is reaching deep into the Mississippi market, acquiring Magnolia Bluffs Casino in Natchez. Saratoga, which doesn’t intend a rebrand, inherits 14 table games and 450-plus slots … California card room Star Casino, in Tracy, is relocating to a site with more elbow-room. Management is trying to position the new venue as an entertainment center first, a card room second … Kudos to Wheeling Island Hotel-Casino-Racetrack for giving 300 hams to a local soup kitchen. “We always appreciate the generosity of the casino. They always call us whenever they have something like this,” said the driver who picked up the provender … A study on the viability of a casino-resort in Thailand will be submitted shortly to an “extraordinary committee” of 60 politicians. Foreigners would be given preferential admission to such a resort, in all likelihood … Cryptocurrency may soon be the linga franca of Internet gambling, especially offshore. “This segment has exploded in a very short amount of time, and as a decentralized system, it makes it even more difficult to figure out how to go after them,” American Gaming Association lobbyist Alex Costello said. Added one problem gambler, “I could self-exclude 20 times and it wouldn’t make any difference, because you can just go back and make another account.” At present cryptocurrency gambling is illegal on the Web in the U.S.—and with good reason, it appears.
