{"id":16109,"date":"2015-05-22T14:00:03","date_gmt":"2015-05-22T22:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=16109"},"modified":"2015-05-22T14:00:03","modified_gmt":"2015-05-22T22:00:03","slug":"louisianas-bonny-april-nevada-gold-now-with-100-more-nevada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/louisianas-bonny-april-nevada-gold-now-with-100-more-nevada\/","title":{"rendered":"Louisiana’s bonny April; Nevada Gold now with 100% more Nevada"},"content":{"rendered":"

Golden Nugget Lake Charles<\/strong> continues to be the outboard engine that speeds up Louisiana<\/strong> gaming revenues. The Pelican State was up \"Louisiana_Flag\"<\/a>4% last month — but 13% when Tilman Fertitta<\/strong>‘s casino is added to the tally. It even made inroads upon L’Auberge du Lac<\/strong>, shaving 4% from what that Pinnacle Entertainmen<\/strong>t property made last year. L’Auberge, however, continued to dominate the market in sheer dollars: $31 million to Golden Nugget’s $18 million. Nearby Isle Grand Palais<\/strong> made a modest gain, while Boyd Gaming<\/strong>‘s Delta Downs<\/strong> was up 3%.<\/p>\n

Boyd had the best month of any Louisiana operator, up 7% across the state. Only Gaming & Leisure Properties<\/strong> declined, down 4% at Hollywood Baton Rouge<\/strong>. Pinnacle’s L’Auberge Baton Rouge<\/strong> continues to crush the market (+12%), although Tropicana Entertainment<\/strong>‘s Belle of Baton Rouge<\/strong> made a 4% uptick. Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> was incrementally up statewide, thanks to domination of the New Orleans<\/strong> market ($25.5 \"Horseshoe<\/a>million, -4%) and a big gain at Horseshoe Bossier City<\/strong>, up 19%. All of this more than made up for a washout at low-grossing Louisiana Downs<\/strong>, -28.5%.<\/p>\n

The Shreveport<\/strong>\/Bossier City<\/strong> market had a positive month on the whole, with only Louisiana Downs and minor player Diamond Jacks<\/strong> (-1%) cause for disappointment. In the New Orleans area, Churchill Downs<\/strong> suffered a modest\u00a0(3%) setback at Fair Grounds<\/strong> racino, but both Boyd and Pinnacle prospered. The former saw a 13% growth aboard\u00a0Treasure Chest<\/strong>, in Kenner<\/strong>, while Boomtown New Orleans<\/strong> rose 10%. Sam’s Town Shreveport<\/strong> (+5%) and outlying Boyd properties gave a good account of themselves.<\/p>\n

* In an indirect response to gadfly shareholder Jonathan Litt<\/strong>, an MGM Resorts International executive described the notion of selling MGM \"MGM_Cotai\"<\/a>Macau<\/strong> or in-progress MGM Cotai<\/strong>\u00a0(right<\/em>) as “a very bad idea.” (Liquidating China<\/strong> assets was a particular hobbyhorse of Litt’s.) Special Counsel William Scott<\/strong> might as well have been channeling CEO Jim Murren<\/strong> when he made the remark at Global Gaming Expo Asia<\/strong>.\u00a0\u201cWe consider all ideas,” Scott said. “But some ideas are not good ideas. And selling down the interest we have in Macao<\/strong> \u2026 the reverse would be true\u00a0…We\u2019d like to make broader investments in MGM Macau.\u201d To that end, MGM is investing $3 billion in its Cotai property, scheduled to open in 15 months or so.<\/p>\n

Sanford Bernstein Hong Kong<\/strong> analyst Vitaly Umansky<\/strong> threw a ripple into the discussion when he mooted that some current Macao casinos might become buyout targets for Chinese investors. That’s an interesting proposition, especially as it could either reshuffle the affiliation of those casinos that run by third parties like Galaxy Entertainment<\/strong> and Sociedade de Jogos de Macau<\/strong> or could put the Macanese government in bed with new casino concessionaires it did not choose.<\/p>\n

* Nevada Gold & Casinos<\/strong> will now actually have a presence in \"clubfortune-pic\"<\/a>Nevada<\/strong>, having just acquired Club Fortune Casino<\/strong>, in Henderson<\/strong>, for $14 million. Club Fortune has 560 slots and 13 table games. Prior to this deal, Nevada Gold had a substantial position\u00a0in Washington State<\/strong> and a slot route in South Dakota<\/strong>. It will be interesting to see if this is a one-off purchase or if Nevada Gold or whether it presages the peeling off of more independent operations to agglomerate a substantial Nevada presence.<\/p>\n

* South Korea<\/strong> is pursuing a rather tortuous policy with regard to gambling by its own citizens. It bars them from all but one remote casino \"Casino-cruise-ship\"<\/a>on Korean soil. But it is floating the idea of allowing them to gamble on the high seas<\/a>, anticipating a 43% increase in oceanic tourism by 2020.\u00a0Oceans Minister Yoo Ki-june<\/strong> said,\u00a0\u201cIf the discussed plans are pushed forward without any problems, we will be able to launch at least a single cruise ship carrying the national flag and reach our goal of 1.2 million cruise tourists by the end of this year,\u201d rolling out the policy initiative.<\/p>\n

The idea landed with a thud<\/a> where landlocked, locals-oriented Kangwon<\/strong> casino was concerned, perhaps the more so since the casino was riding a 10% revenue increase in 2014. The Ministry of Oceans & Fisheries<\/strong> tried to temper the backlash by saying that Koreans would only be permitted to gamble six hours at the most per day and “The maximum betting amount for individuals would be below US$100 for a five-day trip,” according to GGR Asia<\/em>. How many punters would go on a casino trip with a $20\/day betting budget? Not many, I’d expect.<\/p>\n

The concept still sufficiently riled residents of the Kangwon area to plan a protest of the new policy.\u00a0\u201cThe government established the casino that serves locals …\u00a0for the special purpose of helping former miners and boosting the local economy.\u00a0If [gambling] is banned on land, it should be banned at sea,” said Kangown CEO\u00a0Hahm Seung-heui<\/strong>. In response, Yoo framed it as a fairness issue, keeping Korea’s cruise industry on a competitive footing with those\u00a0of other Pacific Rim countries, such as Genting Hong Kong<\/strong>. Yoo has skin in the game, in the sense that government-owned\u00a0Grand Leisure Korea Ltd<\/strong>. is one of the companies expected to vie for a contract.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Golden Nugget Lake Charles continues to be the outboard engine that speeds up Louisiana gaming revenues. The Pelican State was up 4% last month — but 13% when Tilman Fertitta‘s casino is added to the tally. It even made inroads … 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":[60,176,120,190,7,85,84,62,11,30,111,92,182,187,61,129,21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16109"}],"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=16109"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16113,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16109\/revisions\/16113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}