VitalVegas is a veritable font of Las Vegas Strip scuttlebutt. Among its recent rumor-chases was the tantalizing hint that Planet Hollywood was going to go smoke-free. (Official word from Caesars Entertainment: “Untrue.” End of story.) Also, author Scott Roeben is hot on the trail of potential Hard 
Rock International acquisitions in Las Vegas (nobody, it seems, thinks HRI is going to build from scratch). He has The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas as the frontrunner, due to previous discussions between Blackstone Group and the Seminole Tribe, which could be back “on” again. However, Roeben also throws in The Cromwell (too small for Hard Rock, we think), Bally’s Las Vegas (for the underlying real estate) and The Mirage into the mix, and we agree on the Tropicana Las Vegas and Planet Ho as candidates for purchase. In a Strip that’s getting a bit stale, the consequence of a duopoly, the Seminoles would bring a proven track record of creating excitement and some fresh thinking.
As for the ruthless termination of Rampart Casino employees, Roeben hears that the workforce could go from 1,700 to 200. Worse, if possible, the casino may not reopen until October. That’s a lot of misery to go around. Like us, Roeben is a little skeptical of how this restaurants-in-casinos reopening is going to work from a practical standpoint … but I’m sure we’ll both be following it with interest.
* The pandemic shutdown hit Caesars Entertainment pretty evenly across the spectrum. Net revenue at Las Vegas casinos was $822 million (-14%), $874 million at regional casinos (-13.5%) and $132 million at managed and international operations (-12%). Prospective buyer Eldorado Resorts had a more inconsistent run of luck. Southern casinos tumbled 27% to $97 million, “Central” ones slipped to $100 million while Midwest properties slid 16% to $61 million. In the west, Eldorado’s $105.5 million was a 11% dip and out east its net revenues of $108 million were a 15.5% decline. Total gross was $422 million, puny compared to Caesars’ haul.
* Here’s a ray of hope for Nevada. Initial claims for unemployment have declined for two straight weeks. May 9’s 21,635 is a 24% drop-off from the previous week’s 28,550, for a grand total of 462,396 initial claims filed in 2020. That’s a lot of misery but is there cause to hope that the worst is behind us?
