Belated Christmas presents, Part II

If the good news keeps raining down like this, I might have to start using the R-word … as in “recovery.” In November, Nevada‘s $880 million gross was good for a 7% upsurge. The Las Vegas Strip beat the statewide average, up 9%. According to a J.P. Morgan analyst report, those numbers “reflect the continuing strengthening of trends (volume growth in baccarat, tables … and slot), which were likely helped by the solid event calendar for the month.” Analyst Joseph Greff went on to predict December growth of similar proportions, coming off bad prior-year numbers. Greff’s year-ahead scenario calls for slow but steady improvement in ADRs and only slightly higher operating expenses.

A teensy increase in slot handle translated to a 3% increase in casino win (on the Strip, anyway), although the key number is always baccarat. Casinos had their way with baccarat players, winning $89 million (29% up from November 2010). Even non-baccarat table play was strong for the casinos, up 12%. Locals play continues to solidify, save for a, -5% month in the bumpy North Las Vegas market, with both Downtown (+7%) and the Boulder Strip (+12%) on the ascent. Even Reno had a microscopically positive month, unlike Lake Tahoe, displaying its usual seasonal volatility (-7%). Laughlin (right) declined just 2% but has had only one revenue-positive month this year, a 12% bounce last June. They really need some new or dramatically refreshed product down thataways.

As for high rollers, they’re the beneficiaries of a new, high-limit slot area at Winn Wynn Las Vegas, announced today … although it was rolled out last Dec. 21. Yup, you have to be an early riser to get ahead of a Marilyn Spiegel press release. Patrons — who are unlikely to include any S&G readers — can cool their heels in a private lounge equipped with a 103-inch (!) HDTV set. Roger Thomas has swathed the 65-machine “slot salon” in a mosaic of Venetian glass, Parisian lamps and posh draperies, not to mention “a seven-foot gold lotus fountain.”

As investments go, I like that better than a half-billion-dollar offer of unsecured debt that MGM Resorts International is offering around, maturing in 2019. Whoa! Aren’t we getting a little carried away by the recent glad tidings? It’s a borrow-from-Peter-to-pay-Paul deal, meant to retire a small portion of the company’s mind-boggling $13.5 billion debt burden. After bankers were caught out by having issued literally billions in non-collateralized debt to MGM that threatened to vaporize in a CityCenter bankruptcy, you’d think it would require an attack of mass amnesia for anyone to underwrite this $500 million proposition. MGM probably needs to revisit the issue of reducing its exposure on the Strip instead.

It was a pretty good year to own a casino in Detroit, where revenues have been climbing for two years running. They raked in $1.4 billion, good for a 3% increase. MotorCity Casino grew its business 6% and now has fully one-third of the marketplace. MGM Grand Detroit, of course, remains the big cat on the block, with 42% market share and a 3% uptick. Even long-suffering Greektown Casino ended the year with a hopeful blip, up 1%. In light of MGM’s $600 million gross, one can easily see why its workers balked at the first contract offer on the table last year … but forgive me if I theorize that management gave them a wink and a nod. It’s not exactly a black mark on MGM’s escutcheon if it can boast it has the best-compensated casino workers in town, now is it?

He’s outta there. Congratulations — we think — to Ronald P. Johnson, who is officially master of his domain at the Las Vegas Hotel & Casino, which was driven to ruin by Colony Capital. Colony, it was revealed in court, has seen its LVH equity entirely evaporate … part for the course at casinos under CEO Tom Barrack‘s dunderhead stewardship. S&G wishes Johnson the best of luck in restoring the LVH’s tarnished luster.