{"id":10926,"date":"2013-06-03T15:51:15","date_gmt":"2013-06-03T23:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=10926"},"modified":"2013-06-03T15:51:15","modified_gmt":"2013-06-03T23:51:15","slug":"the-rest-of-the-story-boyd-igt-bally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/the-rest-of-the-story-boyd-igt-bally\/","title":{"rendered":"The rest of the story: Boyd, IGT & Bally"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"While in Vegas, Deutsche Bank’<\/strong>s Carlo Santarelli<\/strong> dropped in on Boyd Gaming<\/strong> and … well, the news wasn’t as good there as on the Strip. He predicts a “tempered recovery,” adding that “expectations for an inflection in the LV locals gaming recovery are premature at present.” All the important indicators — employment, construction activity, home prices — are trending in the right direction. Not so good for players is a drastic reduction in comps and promotional offers. Given all of that, is it any great surprise that locals are spending 4\/5 of what they were at the height of the boom? Boyd, specifically, is looking toward $200 million in locally derived cash flow this year, compared to 2007’s $275 million. According to Santarelli, “they believe [recovery] is lurking around the corner,” as they always seem to do. Elsewhere, its Midwest casinos are stable, performance in Louisiana<\/strong> — where Wall Street<\/strong> erroneously predicted Boyd would over-saturate — is strong while neighboring Mississippi<\/strong> is a weak spot. And, Boyd oh-so-casually just happened to mention that many regional casinos are being shopped around these days. Santarelli, however, sees Boyd as more of a potential seller than a buyer.<\/p>\n

International Game Technology<\/strong>: Stiff competition and adverse trends in the market still make IGT an underdog. However, private equity funds — which have dabbled rather \"\"disastrously in casinos — may be looking to purchase equipment manufacturers now — and IGT would be one of the more attractive acquisitions. Company leadership, in the meantime, is buying loyalty with a mixture of dividends and share repurchases. Potential upsides — wider wide-area progressives and Illinois<\/strong> slot routes — were relegated to the bottom of Santarelli’s report. The company’s energy appears almost completely focused on monetizing its DoubleDown<\/strong> acquisition overseas, drawing upon its deep and impressive repertory of games, in which respect it is certainly playing to its strengths.<\/p>\n

\"\"Bally Technologies<\/strong>. Having already “priced in” the strength of Bally’s wide-area progressives and systems sales, Santarelli left BYI HQ in a ho-hum mood. Bally’s NASCAR<\/strong> progressive has been seeing action in Connecticut<\/strong> and California<\/strong>, as well as the Las Vegas Strip<\/strong>, but the company needs it and comparable games to grow, to compensate for the expected retirement of 9,000 machines next year. Management is bullish about Internet<\/strong> gambling, believe it can take home 10% of online win, comparable to European levels. Stability and strength seem to be the key impressions Santarelli took home with him, even if Bally didn’t rock his world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While in Vegas, Deutsche Bank’s Carlo Santarelli dropped in on Boyd Gaming and … well, the news wasn’t as good there as on the Strip. He predicts a “tempered recovery,” adding that “expectations for an inflection in the LV locals … 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":[60,28,29,58,37,84,35,92,9,20,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10926"}],"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=10926"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10928,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10926\/revisions\/10928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}