There’s one reason to look forward to November in Atlantic City: Revenue comparisons will no longer have to include the dead 
weight of Trump Taj Mahal. Gaming revenues were up 3.5% on the Boardwalk last month but add the Taj to the mix and they were almost 3%. Internet gambling ($21 million) was gangbusters, up 32.5%. Slot handle, hold and revenue were all flat, at $166 million for the month, while a 1.5% slippage in table game wagering translated into an 8.5% drop in revenue, to $55 million. Borgata grossed $70.5 million, a 7.5% increase, with table revenue up almost 15% ($21 million) and slots gaining 5% on a corresponding increase in coin-in.
Market share of online play was a follows: Continue reading
upbeat tone and positive commentary on Reno trends … and long-term plan to continue growing the company through accretive acquisitions,” mainly from “distressed funds” and illogical casino owners, Greff wrote. Job One is to optimize revenue in Reno, Black Hawk and Indiana to make up for flat performance by Isle of Capri-branded properties. Hurricanes Harvey and Irma have negatively impacted revenue performance at Isle Pompano and the Isle-branded Lake Charles riverboat that is being spun off to a tribal buyer.
casinos are at a bit of a loss, and they’re trying kind of what they see working elsewhere and are hoping they will work in their establishment … To [MGM Grand‘s] credit, they keep trying. They’re trying new things. They’ve got the virtual reality now. They’ve got a golf game that is kind of a 3-D, interactive golf game. They’re trying a lot of different things, but nothing has quite clicked yet.”
downtown Manhattan, and it was actually, before the World Trade Center, was the tallest—and then, when they built the World Trade Center, it became known as the second-tallest. And now it’s the tallest.” — Donald Trump, promoting his own real estate, in characteristic fashion, 
interview with Nikkei Asian Review, 
trepidation. Perhaps it is the vampiric rise of slot routes in Illinois, but the northern tier of Indiana casinos were almost all down last month. The lone gainer ($33 million) was Horseshoe Hammond, up 1%. Ameristar East Chicago ($17 million) took a 3.5% hit while Blue Chip was off a percentage point, at $13 million, while the Majestic Star boats were down 1% and 2% respectively.
just fine. Last month Penn National Gaming‘s Hollywood Perryville was up 5% ($6 million), while Golden Entertainment‘s Rocky Gap Resort ascended 6% ($5 million) and Ocean Downs racino jumped 12% to $7 million. Things were not so rosy for Maryland Live, which grossed $45 million but fell 20% — worse than Cordish Gaming executives had predicted. (They thought it would be somewhere in the 15% range.) Horseshoe Baltimore did even worse, falling 21% and grossing $22 million.
which will undoubtedly take a narrow view in weighing the constitutionality of the Bradley Act. For instance, “earlier this year, Americans bet an estimated $15 billion on the Super Bowl and NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament alone, and 97% of those bets were made illegally.” That dog won’t hunt with SCOTUS, nor will citing public opinion polls that favor legalized sports betting. More to the point is the brief’s “PASPA has thus had the perverse effect of pushing an enormous market underground by way of federal decree while stamping out state and local efforts to 
out, there’s a dark-horse developer 
and negative associations to anyone who frequents the Las Vegas Strip. While Witkoff’s business plan is as yet undisclosed, 
cash flow 
That figure is so dazzling I had to run the calculation twice before I believed it. We’ve not seen prices on the Las Vegas Strip this giddy since the go-go period of 10 years ago. By contrast, Genting paid $4 million an acre for Echelon, which may be why the multinational feels it can take its own sweet time to recoup the investment. By contrast, Witkoff is in so deep he may be forced to monetize his shiny, new object as quickly as possible. (Which wouldn’t be bad for the Strip.) No wonder the official announcement of the F-blew purchase struck such a defensive posture: 
hoppers. But, if so, what’s the Strip’s excuse for not doing better? Las Vegas visitation was down only 1%, after all. Room rates and revenues were up, despite a tough comparison, Conventioneers 
Group and New Valley, who bought F-blew for a cool $600 million. When you consider that Icahn bought the incredible bulk for $148 million, recouped a bit of that from asset sales and tax write-offs, he comes out of this risky real estate play smelling like a rose. (VitalVegas is 
casino is 
basement purchase price by selling off everything wasn’t nailed down — and even something that was: the custom-built escalators, which you can now ride at Downtown Grand. The Plaza Hotel and even Affinity Gaming‘s sad-sack trio of casinos in Primm benefited from Uncle Carl’s rummage sale. The buyer of Uncle Carl’s Carpet Barn is as yet unidentified save as a “very politically connected … sizable Eastern real estate investment company.” Except for the first part that sounds like Gaming & Leisure Properties Inc. (The Trump Organization already has undeveloped real estate just off the Strip, so I think we can count them out, although they have the ultimate political connection.)