{"id":1596,"date":"2009-12-15T12:57:51","date_gmt":"2009-12-15T20:57:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=1596"},"modified":"2021-06-03T07:38:31","modified_gmt":"2021-06-03T15:38:31","slug":"pelican-state-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/pelican-state-blues\/","title":{"rendered":"Pelican State blues"},"content":{"rendered":"

November numbers are in for Louisiana<\/strong> and it’s the Pelican State’s worst gaming month in five quarters. Only the independent Eldorado Shreveport<\/em> riverboat and Fair Grounds<\/strong> racino near New Orleans<\/strong> reported revenue growth. All major operators took it on the chin, to varying degrees: Penn National Gaming<\/strong> (-21%), Isle of Capri Casinos<\/strong> (-21%), Pinnacle Entertainment<\/strong> (-18%), Boyd Gaming<\/strong> (-17%) and Harrah’s Entertainment<\/strong> (-15%).<\/p>\n

Generally speaking, Lousiana numbers have been falling off the table these last months, but some of the more dramatic declines are anomalous. Isle of Capri Lake Charles<\/strong> is down 50% but its revenue base is so puny ($1.1 million last month) that it doesn’t take much to swing the needle there. In September\u00a0 it was up<\/em> 49%. Columbia Sussex<\/strong> is winding down operations aboard its Amelia Belle<\/em>, which probably accounts for consecutive monthly declines of 29% and 37%.<\/p>\n

A sudden 22% revenue shrinkage in the Lake Charles<\/strong> area, normally buoyed by oil money out of Houston, suggests that Pinnacle panicked when it saw the numbers. Hence its decision to downsize Sugarcane Bay<\/strong> and make it an extension of L’Auberge du Lac<\/strong> (which still makes more than double its two Isle of Capri competitors combined<\/em>). However, all major markets had it rough — so much so that Shreveport’s -12% month was the good<\/em> news.<\/p>\n

Still no table games in Pennsylvania<\/strong>. In addition to a complicated tax formula, the bill in the lower house is so adorned with Christmas baubles<\/a> (including a potential increase in the number of slots allowed “resort” casinos) that progress is happening at a snail’s pace. The only clear winner so far is the Keystone State GOP, which got something very close to the (lowish) tax rate it wanted.<\/p>\n

Casino backer ‘fesses up<\/strong>. The man behind the curtain of Baltimore<\/strong>‘s proposed casino turns out to be York Capital Managment<\/strong>, a fund with a somewhat nebulous investment strategy<\/a>. Now York needs to lend its apparently penniless Canadian casino partners the $19.5 million they still haven’t ponied up<\/a> for their application fee. Disclosure of York’s involvement makes the situation in Baltimore less ludicrous, but only slightly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

November numbers are in for Louisiana and it’s the Pelican State’s worst gaming month in five quarters. Only the independent Eldorado Shreveport riverboat and Fair Grounds racino near New Orleans reported revenue growth. All major operators took it on 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":[60,15,7,22,85,84,72,69,95,30,33,111,25],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1596"}],"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=1596"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29654,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1596\/revisions\/29654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}