Strip weak, locals strong, Reno supercharged; Stanley Ho’s empire crumbles

January got the Las Vegas Strip off to a less-than auspicious start, with revenues dropping 9% from 2017. Locals casinos, meanwhile, were living it up, as revenue rose 8%, thanks in part to New Year’s Eve weekend slot drop being rolled into January. (Yeah, but what’s the Strip’s excuse?) Strip slot revenue was flat at $273 million, on 2.5% less coin-in and despite tighter hold. A 22% drop-off in baccarat play translated into 28% fewer winnings, while all other table games played relatively luckily for the house, down 5% but on 9% less wagering. Table revenue edged slightly past slot win, at $276 million. Despite the Lucky Dragon closure, Downtown revenues were up 2% ($56.5 million) and Boulder Strip casinos banned 7% more ($90.5 million). North Las Vegas was flat at $29 million while miscellaneous Clark County leapt 12% to $105 million. Laughlin was up 3.5% and Reno rode a 14% surge to $45 million and Lake Tahoe was warm: 15% higher and $19.5 million grossed. Elko jumped 17% to $22 million and Carson Valley rose 7% to $8 million. Come to think of it, everybody benefited except the Strip. Perhaps February will see better things — Wall Street analysts appear to be banking heavily on Chinese New Year.

* How times have changed! Sociedade de Jogos de Macau, once a monopoly holder on Macao gambling, has seen its market share decline to 5% (although its proclivity for VIP play — 16% of market share — may ameliorate some of the damage). The market leader, not surprisingly, is Sands China at 33%, then Galaxy Entertainment with 24%, followed by Wynn Resorts (17%), Melco Resorts & Entertainment (13%) and MGM Resorts International (7%). The plurality of the whales (28%) are swimming to Galaxy, followed by Wynn with 22%. Sands is way back at 12% but Sheldon Adelson is somewhat averse to the VIP market, so he won’t mind.

* Considering that he has a salary that exceeds the rent paid by all the casinos he controls, Vici Properties CEO Ed Pitoniak better have some good ideas. He’d like to take institutional investors to school in the sense of helping them “better understand the nature, quality, integrity and durability of the real estate cash flows that come out of these assets … further driving the institutionalization of the sector so that institutional capital becomes very confident in the quality and durability of our real estate cash flows.” In other words, don’t treat them as magic boxes that generate instant cash, the way Tom Barrack and William J. Yung ran Colony Capital and Columbia Sussex casinos into the ground.

Pitoniak hints delicately at non-Caesars Entertainment acquisitions and states that the REIT’s focus will be on gaming assets. “There may come a day when we will have mined most all of the high-grade ore out of gaming, and at that time we will investigate adjacent leisure and hospitality sectors,” he says. Vici will be letting other people handle the construction business: “Development involves taking development risk and it means deploying capital during a period in which you are not getting income back on the deployment of that capital.” Pitoniak likes the stability which Caesars’ geographical sprawl gives the REIT but he also doesn’t want to put all his eggs in the Caesars basket over the long haul. Sounds like a good plan, all of it.

* Remember Foxwoods Casino Philadelphia? Probably not, because it never got built. Casino heavyweights briefly included Steve Wynn (three days) and Harrah’s Entertainment (two months). Well, the court system isn’t going to give Foxwoods its casino but it might get its $50 million licensing fee back from the commonwealth. That’ll buy salve for all those wounds.

* A proposed amendment to the Arkansas constitution has been tweaked to make it more gambling-friendly. Driving Arkansas Forward would now juice Oaklawn horse track in Hot Springs and the Southland greyhound track in West Memphis into casinos, with two sites to be determined. This was music to Southland’s ears while Oaklawn withheld comment pending further information. Both tracks already have VLTs but presumably would welcome expanded gambling options. The initiative must be approved by the state attorney general before so much as one signature can be put on a petition, let alone be voted upon, so Driving Arkansas Forward is a long way from the finish line.