For those of you who have to work on the holidays …
Alas, most of the work week has been lost to a sudden onset of the flu. After answering a few “Question(s) of the Day” I was a goner … even though news of the casino industry marches implacably onwards. Anyway, as Christmas Eve approaches, I write to you literally as that oft-maligned critter, the pajama-clad blogger. I hope the holiday season finds you all with the people who matter most and that — whether you celebrate Hanukkah or Christmas or some wintry variant thereof — that you find yourself and your loved ones blessed with that which you require most.
“Nothing optional — from homosexuality to adultery — is ever made punishable unless those who do the prohibiting (and exact the fierce punishment) have a repressed desire to participate.” — just one of the 
“[Erin] Burnett, despite her youth, is a relic of a bygone age. She embodies ’90s ‘market populism,’ to use 
This has been a terrible fortnight for S&G but, hey, we’ve got some good news from Pennsylvania. Last month’s gambling revenues were reported this morning and they’re up 12%, thanks mostly to the growing popularity of table games. (Atlantic City, beware.) As for what might be called the “Aqueduct Effect,” of which I had grown skeptical, here it is: Sands Bethlehem‘s slot revenues are on pace to come up maybe $4 million-$5 million short of Wall Street projections. That’s it. In terms of growth (40%), if not sheer dollar volume ($54 million), Keystone State tables had a blockbuster month. The aberration was Mohegan Sun Pocono Downs, which was 1.5% million off last year’s pace — flat, in unadjusted dollars — which seemingly betokens a combination of bad marketing and much worse luck. In terms of percentage gain, The Meadows racino “only” rose 12%, while Sands was up an astronomical 107%, also enjoying the biggest dollar-for-dollar increase, too. Other than Parx Casino (up 59% and tops overall with almost $11 million), the high-jumpers included newbie SugarHouse (32%, passing Harrah’s Chester Downs in dollars won) and erstwhile laggard Rivers Casino, up 46%. Throw in double-digit gains in 
There’s regular arithmetic and then there’s Walmart math. I mean, who ever knew that a 29% price increase constituted a “rollback”? Perhaps I shouldn’t be sharing this novel concept with the gaming industry, giving them ideas, but S&G readers deserve a bit of holiday levity.
Well, slightly Vegas anyway. Holly Madison has managed to become the single most ubiquitous celebrity in town (unless you count food-stained wretch Robin Leach, which I don’t). This year, she’s gracing Nevada Ballet Theater‘s The Nutcracker, which is playing a limited run at Paris-Las Vegas. I don’t get Ms. Madison’s 
Remember how, back when the Planet Hollywood casino-hotel was assimilated into the Caesars Entertainment matrix, former owner Robert Earl was going to 
Colony Capital has a Nevada gaming license. Ronald P. Johnson does not, even though he’s been advising Goldman Sachs on its gaming operations for the past year. 
Las Vegas made the Sunday funny pages this week. One could get all irate about Mike Peters‘ dig at gambling and the Strip. However, if he wanted to equate casinos with fleapits, he could have chosen more wisely than he did. I mean, who doesn’t like making jokes about Circus Circus and Imperial Palace? One could argue that Peters’ selection — Wynn Las Vegas, Bellagio, MGM Grand, Caesars Palace and Flamingo Las Vegas — testifies to their brand equity. And, that being the case, why is Caesars Entertainment effacing as much as possible of the Flamingo brand rather than capitalizing upon it? For certain markets — Florida being an obvious one — it more sense than stamping “Horseshoe” on every new property.
October’s revenue figures for Nevada emerged today and it was a good month statewide ($961 million, +8%) and a great one for the Las Vegas Strip ($560.5 million, +13%). Mind you, October 1 was a Saturday, meaning that some Sept. 30 slot revenues may have been rolled into the next month’s tally — per Nevada’s unique method of reporting — making fluctuations appear more volatile than they really were. Booming baccarat play and strong hold — as you probably guessed already — drove the Strip numbers, which included $159 million in baccarat win. Poker aside, table revenues were up 21% (a slightly less impressive +9% when baccarat is backed out). Bigger slot play and higher hold both propelled the one-armed bandits, up 5% year/year.
With the help of a remade Plaza Hotel, the Downtown market enjoyed an 8% bounce, while some of the most encouraging auguries were once the performance of casinos in North Las Vegas and the Boulder Strip. Coming off a bad September (mind what I said about volatility earlier), those markets were up 15% and 14%, respectively. Drive-in traffic was slow, so to speak, and outlying markets suffered from it. Laughlin was off 3%, Reno an alarming 12%, coming off a 21-point drop the year previous … even though nearby Lake Tahoe had a nice, 4% boost. (The State of Nevada doesn’t bust out numbers for Mesquite and Primm specifically, not that all-important weather vane 
First, the good news: Borgata — accounting for more than one-fifth of the entire market share — continues to vastly outpace the rest of the Atlantic City market. Last month, it raked in $50 million for a 2% gain, driven by strong slot play … and despite looser hold (8.3% vs. 8.9%) than A.C. overall. Among Wall Street analysts, Joseph Greff of J.P. Morgan was in the Glass Half-Full Dept., reporting that Borgata had exceeded his expectations. Deutsche Bank‘s Carlo Santarelli took the opposite tack, having pegged Borgata to gross $2 million more than it did, in a traditionally weak month.
Leave it to the marketing geniuses at Comme ça (in The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas) to come up with the dopiest — no, not “dopest,” dopiest — publicity photo of 2011. How do you publicize your fine, 
So you’re running in the Zappos.com Rock ‘n’ Roll Las Vegas Marathon and, as you pass the Riviera, your hamstrings burning you like a Donald Trump real estate scheme, you have a sudden urge to lay some bread on that night’s Detroit Lions vs. New Orleans Saints game. You’re in luck … or in Lucky’s Race & Sports Book, more accurately. When Lucky’s sublicensed sports-betting operations at the Riv, it added a walk-up betting window, of which two Colorado runners (pictured) took advantage. You can’t make a quickie wager on the Red Sox during the Boston Marathon, can you? Well … not yet, anyway.
“You had to have a kind of intuitive courage. I’m not well-suited to those kinds of decisions.” — Gary Loveman, to Bloomberg Businessweek, on why he thought $900 million was too high a price for getting then-Harrah’s Entertainment into Macao. Truer words were never spoken, Gary!
As the reviews trickle in from Saturday night’s Las Vegas premiere of Michael Jackson The IMMORTAL World Tour™ we may be seeing an inversion of the Viva Elvis™ phenomenon. In the latter instance, the out-of-towners raved and local critics yawned. In the case of Jackson, the in-Vegas verdict is pretty favorable, 
That nexus in which the media and Big Gaming interact is conspicuously less populous today. First came the news that Sarah Ralston (1961-2011) had died a fortnight ago, following what is characterized as “-
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