{"id":10298,"date":"2013-01-10T16:05:51","date_gmt":"2013-01-11T00:05:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=10298"},"modified":"2013-01-10T16:05:51","modified_gmt":"2013-01-11T00:05:51","slug":"november-in-vegas-the-house-lost-players-jilt-caesars-in-a-c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/november-in-vegas-the-house-lost-players-jilt-caesars-in-a-c\/","title":{"rendered":"November in Vegas: The house lost; Players jilt Caesars in A.C."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"There’s no other way of saying it (although many are trying). Strip casinos got their clocks cleaned in November as Lady Luck favored the punters, not the house. A 13% dropoff on the Strip was driven by a perfect storm of factors. Sports books relearned the old lesson that it’s not whether you won or lost; it’s whether you covered the spread<\/a>. Coin-in at the slots was up 4% but holds were looser and casinos took in 10% less than 2011. Same at the tables: Players put 5% more on the felt and casinos lost 10% more than in the year previous. Baccarat dealt the cruelest blow. Wagers were down 16% and fortune smiled on the players, as the casinos raked in 25% less, year over year.<\/p>\n

Off-Strip, Boyd Gaming<\/strong> (-14%) actually fared much better than average for locals casinos. (I foresee some long faces at Station Casinos<\/strong>, however.) Downtown revenues fell 17%, and there were steep dives on the Boulder Strip<\/strong> (-26%) and in North Las Vegas<\/strong> (-24%). At a mere 2% slippage, much-abused Laughlin<\/strong> did mighty well and snowbirds helped the volatile Lake Tahoe<\/strong> market become of the very few to report revenue-positive numbers (up 27%). Of course, it there’s one time of the year you’d expect<\/em> discretionary dollars to dry up, it’s November and December, when Santa Claus<\/strong> is making out like a bandit. As for the Strip casinos, recovery is a double-edged sword: The players are back, in the main. But they’re winning, too. Winning big. That wasn’t in the script!<\/p>\n

Slot players are avoiding<\/strong> the casinos of Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> like the plague. That’s the big takeaway from last \"\"month’s Atlantic City<\/strong> numbers. Coin-in was 18% down and revenue fell 16%. By contrast, Borgata<\/strong> eked out a small (2%) increase in slot revenue despite an even smaller decrease in handle. Table-game drop was off at all five casinos (7% at Borgata, 8% at the Caesars quartet) but luck frowned upon Boyd, whose table revenues were -12%, compared to Caesars’ aggregate -5.5%. Citywide, casino revenues were down 9% (or 13% if you don’t count Revel<\/strong>). Since December 2011 was a rare revenue-positive month along the Boardwalk (4%), last month’s data isn’t quite as bad as it looks — certainly not when post-Sandy<\/strong> disorder is taken into account. Casino by casino, percentage comparisons are all over the map and wholly useless. They range from Trump Taj Mahal<\/strong>‘s 92% plunge to the Tropicana<\/strong>‘s 46% growth spurt. At just barely under a $10 million gross, Revel was right down there with all the grind joints: Atlantic Club<\/strong> ($10 million), Resorts Atlantic City<\/strong> ($9.5 million) and penurious Trump Plaza<\/strong> ($6 million). If Unite-Here<\/strong> financial projections are correct, Revel has to displace Harrah’s Atlantic City<\/strong> ($29 million) in the #2 spot to stay in business. Maybe not … but whoever thought a Colony Capital<\/strong>-owned casino would be looking down on Revel?<\/p>\n

\"\"Wall Street follies<\/strong>. One analyst of whom I know got a bit fretful when Bally Technologies<\/strong> then-CEO Richard Haddrill<\/strong> (now board chairman) ceded his title to longtime sidekick Ramesh Srinivasan<\/strong>, even though it was a phased-in, orderly transition and Bally was having a strong quarter. But how to account for the pall of silence that has fallen over gaming analysts after Caesars’ sudden and unexplained ouster of Don Marrandino<\/strong>? You’d think a change of such consequence would get somebody talking but Wall Street<\/strong>‘s chattering classes have turned into signifying monkeys. The only substantive commentary has been the fairly steady downward march of Caesars’ share price, which ended the week at all of $7.08. If you bought into the IPO, I hope you sold that crap while the getting was good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s no other way of saying it (although many are trying). Strip casinos got their clocks cleaned in November as Lady Luck favored the punters, not the house. A 13% dropoff on the Strip was driven by a perfect storm … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,77,88,60,3,28,42,51,14,7,76,49,78,157,57,9,19,20,21,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10298"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10298"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10301,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10298\/revisions\/10301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}