{"id":14968,"date":"2014-11-10T13:15:19","date_gmt":"2014-11-10T21:15:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=14968"},"modified":"2019-03-22T09:03:06","modified_gmt":"2019-03-22T17:03:06","slug":"ohios-big-haul-ny-times-whack-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/ohios-big-haul-ny-times-whack-job\/","title":{"rendered":"Ohio’s big haul; NY Times’ whack job"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ohio<\/strong> has matured rapidly as a casino market, bigger than Illinois<\/strong>, almost as large as Missouri<\/strong> but still a long way from Indiana<\/strong>‘s monthly grosses. Still, a 38% increase in \"Cincy<\/a>casino revenue from last year is nothing at which to sneeze. But with two more racinos in operation comes the word “cannibalization,” as gaming winnings were down 9% on a same-store basis. Caesars Entertainmen<\/strong>t (-19%) had a particularly tough time of it, while Penn National Gaming<\/strong> rose a boffo 48.5%. Hollywood Toledo<\/strong> (+4%) did a most impressive $198\/day\/slot while Hollywood Columbus<\/strong>, down 1.5% from last year, sequentially improved its numbers to $165\/slot\/day, although it seems to have lost business<\/a> to Scioto Downs<\/strong>, up 3%. Tables fared better in Columbus<\/strong> ($1,640\/table\/day) than in Toledo<\/strong> ($1,116\/table\/day).<\/p>\n

Penn’s VLT\u00a0revenues are off the charts at its Hollywood Dayton<\/strong> and Hollywood Austintown<\/strong> racinos — $200\/slot\/day is considered a strong industry average. Penn did $219 and $325, respectively. Alas, all that good fortune had to come at someone’s expense and Horseshoe Cleveland<\/strong> (-12%) seems to have been one of the victims, while Horseshoe Cincinnati<\/strong> (-23%) had an even worse time of it. Any hopes of recapturing that revenue at Thistledown Racetrack<\/strong> (-22%) were in vain. Hard Rock Rocksino<\/strong> is already already strongly outperforming Thistledown, $15.5 million to $10 million. Even taking cannibalization into account, it looks like the industry has finally found some underserved markets in the Buckeye State.<\/p>\n

* Sheldon Adelson<\/strong>‘s next step toward world conquest\u00a0could be a purchase of The New York Times<\/em>. At the very least, it might spare us …<\/p>\n

\n

* … anti-casino stories like this one<\/a>. \u00a0Instead of profiling, say, Adelson’s top-of-the-market Sands Bethlehem<\/strong>, the Times has singled out underperforming Mt. Airy \"MtAiry\"<\/a>Casino Resort<\/strong>, which it implies is a precursor of things to come in the Catskills<\/strong>: “It has generated about half of the slot revenue forecast by Pennsylvania officials, and little economic spillover has occurred outside the resort. Expansion plans have long since been shelved. The much-heralded charitable foundation has raised a grand total of $1, federal filings show.”<\/p>\n

With irresponsible hyperbole, former Pocono Mountains Vacation Bureau<\/strong> chief Robert Uguccioni<\/strong> says,\u00a0\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s any casino in America that didn\u2019t say they were going to have more of an impact than it did.\u201d Never mind that Mt. Airy is in a crowded market niche, competing with Sands and Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs<\/strong>. To hear the Times<\/em> tell it, it’s already a lost cause: “ferocious and fast-evolving competition in a market where the novelty of new casinos often fades fast; and a dissonance between resort gambling and traditional family-friendly attractions.”<\/p>\n

As grim a picture as the Times<\/em> paints, it’s comparable to taking a few underperforming Las Vegas<\/strong> casinos and predicting doom and gloom for Sin City. Mt. Airy had the wrong ownership in the wrong place, and there’s not much Pennsylvania can do about that now.<\/p>\n

* Belt-tightening at International Game Technology<\/strong> translated into higher profits on lower revenues<\/a>. DoubleDown Casino<\/strong> continues to propel business, its $75 million in revenues representing a 22% increase.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ohio has matured rapidly as a casino market, bigger than Illinois, almost as large as Missouri but still a long way from Indiana‘s monthly grosses. Still, a 38% increase in casino revenue from last year is nothing at which to … 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":[165,7,29,167,158,101,71,69,95,111,12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14968"}],"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=14968"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23780,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14968\/revisions\/23780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}