Casino revenue in the Buckeye State vaulted 56%, as several new racinos came on line. The not such good news is that Ohio casinos are merrily cannibalizing themselves, down 16% on a year/year 
basis. Hollywood Columbus, in particular, continues to struggle, posting a lowly $128/slot/day. The most robust performance was a $17 million gross at Horseshoe Cleveland, but that must be set against a 19.5% reduction in winnings, as customers took their business to nearby racinos. No comparison was available for relatively new Horseshoe Cincinnati but Penn National Gaming properties missed Deutsche Bank estimates. Hollywood Columbus lost 16% of its business and Hollywood Toledo was off 19%. Nearby racino Scioto Downs, by contrast, only missed by 4%. Judging by the carnage that the incursion of racinos has caused, you almost have to wonder if Gov. John Kasich set up his state’s casino industry to fail. It’s certainly a market where supply has far outrun demand.
Both Penn properties missed J.P. Morgan estimates by double-digit margins, partly caused by Continue reading
Judging by the sea of happy, AARP-eligible faces behind us (on a Sunday night, too), Harrah’s Las Vegas has a long-term winner in Broadway pickup Million Dollar Quartet. The crowd dug the music, the period outfits, the liberal artistic license and seemed willing to forgive the glaring anachronisms. (The recording booth features tape machines from several different decades and no producer worth his salt would roll session tape at low-fidelity 3.75 inches per second.) The plot is a tissue — of the Kleenex sort — derived from an historic gathering of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis at the studios of Sun Records. There’s a fifth vocalist, a girlfriend of Presley’s, who’s there just to be The Girl, sing “Fever” and cause erotic tensions among the menfolk.
