Spend a few minutes this morning with Revel Resort CEO Scott Kreeger, even if some of his answers are exquisitely vague.
Having been checkmated by voters in Milford, Massachusetts, is no discouragement to Penn National Gaming parent company Gaming & Leisure Properties Inc. 
(We’re going to have to do something about that name.) It bought and leased back independently owned East St. Louis riverboat Casino Queen for a premium price. $140 million may not seem like much but it’s 10X cash flow, well above industry average. That tells you something about how much Penn wants to make a splash. GLPI gets “78 +/- acres [including] a 157 room hotel, a 38,000 square foot casino with 27 gaming tables and 1,155 slot machines, a fine dining steakhouse, a buffet, a quick service deli, a sports bar/entertainment venue, and full service RV park,” not to mention around $125 million or so in gross gaming revenue per year. GLPI will also lend Casino Queen $43 million to refinance or retire existing debt.
This seems an odd time to be snapping up regional casinos — and at top dollar, to boot — but there you have it. As Deutsche Bank analyst Carlo Santarelli writes, we should expect no more “a handful of sale leaseback type transactions in the coming quarters” … but no shortage of willing sellers.
Penn appears to be phoning it in at Argosy Sioux City, where its days as a casino 
operator are waning. (The license is being reassigned to Hard Rock International, which is building an onshore casino.) The casino is down 12% for both last month and for the year. Boyd Gaming was down 6% aboard Diamond Jo Worth and Diamond Jo Dubuque. Caesars Entertainment bucked the trend, growing revenue 9% at its two properties. Statewide results are mediocre, down 1%. I shouldn’t be surprised if GLPI can find some takers in the Hawkeye State.
No surprise, Indiana suffered the same more spending (5%)/fewer visitors (-8%) dichotomy reported in Illinois earlier this month. This was good enough for a modestly positive year/year comparison in the Chicagoland market, but not much more. Up north, Caesars had a monster month aboard Horseshoe Hammond (+17%, $41 million). Its Horseshoe Southern Indiana also escaped the effect of competition from Ohio. Penn’s Hollywood Lawrenceburg (-34.5%), Pinnacle Entertainment‘s Belterra (-17%) and independent Rising Sun (-16%) were not so lucky.
