Isle trends upward; Free the Texas ponies!

Add Isle of Capri Casinos to the list of companies enjoying a positive turn in their fortunes. It reported an operating profit of $57.5 million, a 15% increase. The biggest cash cow was Isle Pompano Park, hauling in $42 million, an 11% uptick. Other big earners were Isle Casino Hotel Black Hawk, with $34 million (+9%) and — predictably enough — Isle of Capri Lake Charles ($32 million), which did lose a slight amount of business to the Golden Nugget. In terms of revenue growth, Lady Luck Nemacolin, in Pennsylvania (+13%) and Lady Luck Caruthersville (+12.5%) in Missouri, both living up to their names. In fact, of the other portfolio, other than Isle Lake Charles, only Isle of Capri Bettendorf, in the competitive Quad Cities market, saw a revenue decline, down 8%. Excepting that, those are the kind of numbers Wall Street likes to see.

Texas lawmakers got all het up and left horse players out in the cold (or rather, heat) over the introduction of “historical racing” VLTs to Lone Star State tracks. It’s a sideways, sly way of introducing casino gambling to Texas and the Lege responded by shutting down funding to the Texas Racing Commission, idling tracks statewide at the height of racing season. Historical racing has been a shot in the arm to Arkansas (much to Mississippi‘s woe) and Kentucky, so it’s easy to see why the TRC would be susceptible to persuasion. “All the surrounding states have alternative gaming, and their purses are a lot better and the horses are going to other states,” lamented one breeder.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (above) brokered a compromise whereby TRC funding was restored for three months. Aside from saving racing season, it will also give Gov. Greg Abbott time to fill three vacant seats on the TRC. Fans of historical racing, however, will still have to get past state Senate Finance Committee chairwoman Jane Nelson (R), who holds firmly that the VLTs are unconstitutional, citing a Travis County ruling as precedent. “Serious doubts have been raised about the leadership of this agency,” she wrote of the TRC. If the horsey set wants to keep VLTs, it may have to force the issue via a petition drive but it’s too early to see if things come to that pass.

* Congratulations to Ken Bossingham, new supremo of global slot operations for International Game Technology. A slot industry veteran, Bossingham comes to IGT from American Gaming Systems, a company caught in the tentacles of Apollo Management. S&G is confident that Bossingham is just what IGT needs and lauds his hire.