{"id":10442,"date":"2013-02-05T16:09:35","date_gmt":"2013-02-06T00:09:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=10442"},"modified":"2013-02-05T16:09:35","modified_gmt":"2013-02-06T00:09:35","slug":"santarelli-bails-on-sgms-blasts-from-the-recent-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/santarelli-bails-on-sgms-blasts-from-the-recent-past\/","title":{"rendered":"Santarelli bails on SGMS; Blasts from the recent past"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Scientific Games<\/strong> has lost the faith of Deutsche Bank<\/strong>‘s Carlo Santarelli<\/strong>. The analyst put out a “sell” recommendation this morning on SGMS stock, issuing a new target price of $6\/share, down from $7. (Scientific was trading at $9.49 at the time.) Is this a big deal? Yes, because you see gaming stocks pegged as a “sell” slightly less frequently than as you see Halley’s Comet<\/strong>. Most Wall Street<\/strong> analysts take refuge in “neutral” ratings on iffy stocks but Santarelli went way out on a limb. Reasons for his decision include the contention that Scientific’s “business model remains stagnant and will continue to be reliant on tough-to-handicap \"\"and somewhat binary legislative events<\/em> [read: politics],” whose benefit to Scientific is difficult to quantify. “[The] rich premium and difficult to identify synergies make the pro forma outlook … daunting<\/em>,” not least because Scientific is no longer as dominant a candidate for privatized state lotteries and the online-lottery sector has been slow to develop. Or so the argument. Bottom line<\/strong>: Scientific is overpaying for an asset — WMS Industries<\/strong> — with a “difficult fundamental outlook” during a slow business cycle.<\/p>\n

Y’all remember Columbia Sussex<\/strong>, the onetime hotel giant whose highly leveraged, low-budgeted venture into the casino industry was its undoing? It continues to shrivel. Last year it had 41 hotels. Now it’s down to 37<\/a> and about to lose one more<\/a>. The Richmond Marriott West<\/strong> was picked up during ColSux’s mid-decade buying spree, when CEO William J. Yung<\/strong> was overpaying for assets right and left. The Kentucky<\/strong> hotelier recently unloaded another Richmond<\/strong> hotel for considerably less than its assessed value. As Yung’s rinky-dink empire continues to crumble, it’s nice to see that bad things do<\/em> happen to bad people.<\/p>\n

If we’ve learned anything<\/strong> from the closing of Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall & Saloon<\/strong> is that it’s never too early for the world’s oldest profession<\/a>. As one reader wrote e-mailed us, “Nice to know that the last interior shot I’ll ever see of Bill’s is of two ‘working ladies<\/em>.'”<\/p>\n

Does “Winners Play Here!”<\/strong> mean that losers play somewhere else? If you think casino ad campaigns tend toward the stale, you’re not alone<\/a>. Raving Consulting<\/strong>‘s Chris Archunde<\/strong> has some thoughts on the subject.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scientific Games has lost the faith of Deutsche Bank‘s Carlo Santarelli. The analyst put out a “sell” recommendation this morning on SGMS stock, issuing a new target price of $6\/share, down from $7. (Scientific was trading at $9.49 at the … 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":[15,28,14,7,53,160,9,38,89],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10442"}],"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=10442"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10443,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10442\/revisions\/10443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}