It may have taken time for Gary Loveman‘s chickens to come home to roost but they’re doing it by the flockful. To raise cash, pronto, Caesars Entertainment — which hasn’t turned a profit in over three years — has piled several random assets into wishfully named entity Caesars Growth Venture Partners, in which it would continue to maintain “a significant portion,” probably a majority, a phrase which should strike terror into the hearts of potential investors. It’s a grab bag that includes Planet Hollywood (left), Caesars Interactive, theoretical ownership of Caesars’ as-yet-unbuilt Baltimore casino and as-yet-to-be-determined “other holdings“ … along with a $1.1 billion I.O.U. Buyers would also find Dan Gilbert waiting for them in bed, since he holds an $80 million stake in Caesars Interactive, for which he paid nearly $5K a share. I’ve long thought the Gilbert deal was either an Continue reading
Penn National Gaming trimmed its 2013 revenue projections today by 3% — not surprising, given the “headwinds” represented by recent tax changes that will eat into Americans’ discretionary income. Sluggish early slot performance in the Columbus and Toledo markets was blamed on a lack of marketing and comping “into underpenetrated submarkets,” as Joseph Greff of J.P. Morgan put it (sounding just a wee bit pornographic). Table games, investors were assured, were doing “just fine.” Revenue generally met expectations but cash flow and profitability were disappointing, with Ohio taking some of the blame, as did Penn’s expensive electoral bust in Maryland, which cut into the bottom line.
numbers at Marina Bay Sands — a cause of “significant investor consternation in recent months,” as Santarelli put it. Greff described the numbers as “better than expected mass [market] revenues … and meaningfully stronger than expected VIP volumes.” He projects over $2.6 billion in cash flow from Sands’ Macao casinos and $1.6 billion from Marina Bay Sands this year (a 21% return on investment). Sands Cotai Central is underperforming its neighbors, casualty of another Sheldon Adelson “soft opening,” but is expected to improve as another 1,800 hotel rooms hit the market in “Phase 2B.” (Adelson’s opening are so soft that 
With 2013 shaping up as a good year for slot sales, Scientific Games has chosen this moment to pounce upon WMS Industries, one of the oldest, biggest and most-respected firms in the industry. SGMS shares promptly leapfrogged from $8.93 to $10.82 a share, then fell into a day-long swoon, settling back towards yesterday’s prices. WMS shares, however, 
year ago, when it hit $13/share. As International Game Technology shares fell toward $15 today, the WMS takeover was a dispatch that 
Sheldon Adelson being too busy trying to dictate American foreign policy, it was left to his Number Two Man, COO Michael Leven (left) to go to Toronto and make the case for a Las Vegas Sands megaresort. 
As the clock ticks toward a shareholder fight over International Game Technology, CEO Patti Hart tried to rally her troops with a bit of good news. IGT has inked a pact to sell 1,375 VLTs to Saskatchewan, representing one-third of the VLT market in that province. Since Wall Street analysts had already incorporated this into their 2013 revenue model, it didn’t set off a big “Wow!” However, Manitoba is coming up on a 6,000-VLT replacement cycle. If IGT can capture at least 35% of that business, it would be worth another four cents of per-share earnings, according to one analyst. But if Hart is banking her presidency on the most recent earnings report, she can expect only mild enthusiasm from the Street. Carlo Santarelli of Deutsche Bank summarized the numbers as mostly “good” — as in the interactive segment — leavened by a couple of dashes of “not good.”
Some of you — and you know who you are — get to Las Vegas several times a year but rarely have the chance to foray far past either the Las Vegas Strip or Downtown. (It’s the same with me and the greatest place on Earth, Manhattan: There’s a well-worn groove through the middle of the island that marks my usual axis.) Huffington Post 
Ever since the government of Macao put a hard cap on the number of table games in the enclave, casino operators have been forced to do a certain amount of cap-and-trade. In order to stock up Sands Cotai, 200 tables had to be removed from Venetian Macao. According to J.P. Morgan analyst Joseph Greff, these were supplanted by “slots, electronic tables, double-dealer games or semi-mechanical tables which have a relatively lower yield.” (I guess this settles the question of whether the Macanese government regards an electronic table as a slot or not.) “Venetian Macao’s mass market volume was negatively impacted (somewhat)” … a situation potentially alleviated by today’s announcement that city hall was granting Sands China 
That’s how much time Sam Nazarian has to scare up $115 million from overseas sources. If the deal isn’t done by Feb. 28, 
That’s essentially the ‘what if’ scenario taken on by Las Vegas Sun columnist J. Patrick Coolican (virtually the only person left at the Sun who’s worth reading). He’s weighed the pros and cons of the Loveman Gang, er, Business Roundtable agenda for Medicare and Social Security. He finds a fair amount of merit in its nostrums, mostly with regard to tweaks in Social Security. “
distributed the pain from top to bottom. Apparent strength in one of Boyd’s biggest territories, Louisiana, was revealed to be flatness when December’s numbers were adjusted to reflect the new business generated by Pinnacle Entertainment‘s L’Auberge Baton Rouge (laying a -28% wallop on Penn National Gaming‘s Hollywood Baton Rouge in the process). All of Boyd’s Pelican State properties save Sam’s Town in Shreveport (-6%) had a revenue-positive month. However, the winter months have been unkind to the mid-American casino states in which Boyd is heavily invested and near-term improvement is unlikely. Lightening of the payroll was to be expected, especially once corporate economies of scale began being applied to the Peninsula acquisitions.
MGM Resorts International, that’s who. As predicted, a lawsuit filed to overturn last November’s casino expansion 
It’s not clear what Lady Luck owner Andrew B. Donner has on his mind but he’s been gobbling up obscure little hotels over on the east side of Downtown. It’s out past the defunct Western casino, so we’re talking way off the beaten path. The Dragon Hotel, at 117 N. 9th Street was Donner’s latest purchase. The transfer of deed hasn’t been recorded yet but a Donner rep says he paid $2 million. That’s awfully “george” 
“[W]e are lowering our 4Q12, 2013, and 2014 forecasts given sluggish regional gaming trends, earlier than expected cannibalization impacts, and a slow start at Hollywood Columbus.” — Deutsche Bank analyst Carlo Santarelli, on Penn National Gaming. Hmmmm, 
Sands has even been hinting at it 
Seems there’s no honor among business partners: While lugging Caesars Entertainment on his back from Cleveland to Cincinnati and thence to Baltimore, mogul Dan Gilbert had a side deal of his own going. 
Maximus/Generalissimo Gary Loveman also wants to dictate the manner in which we eke out our “golden years.” Amazingly, 
almost 20 years from that milestone, which means it will undoubtedly have been bumped back several times more before I’m eligible.) Presumably, this was done on the empirical basis that the Bible allots us three score and 10 years, so we’ll all croak before we can collect Social Security, thereby “saving” the system. The simple fact that Loveman seriously believes that Social Security is sufficient -
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