{"id":16555,"date":"2015-08-12T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-08-12T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=16555"},"modified":"2015-08-13T08:41:07","modified_gmt":"2015-08-13T16:41:07","slug":"isle-abandons-ship-borgata-crushes-atlantic-city-radical-move-from-full-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/isle-abandons-ship-borgata-crushes-atlantic-city-radical-move-from-full-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Isle abandons ship; Borgata crushes Atlantic City; Radical move from Full House"},"content":{"rendered":"

Faced with a casino that had been generating negative return on investment for the past two years, Isle of Capri Casinos<\/strong> announced it was closing its 15-year-old\u00a0Natchez<\/strong> riverboat and \"mcdowell\"<\/a>selling the accompanying hotel to Magnolia Bluffs Casino <\/strong>for $11.5 million.\u00a0The riverboat had been doing $87\/slot\/day on average — abysmal by any industry standard. The question isn’t why Isle made the move but why it left the patient on life support for so long. CEO Virginia McDowell<\/strong> has been trying to trim the Isle ship since taking over but this move seems rather tardy. Deutsche Bank<\/strong> analyst Carlo Santarelli<\/strong> speculates that the gaming inventory will be divvied among other properties. Isle isn’t selling the vessel itself, which makes one speculate whether they hope to drop anchor in another market.<\/p>\n

* The latest numbers are in for Atlantic City<\/strong> and July saw a 7% decrease in gaming revenues, albeit a 7% increase on a same-store basis (i.e., without the four dead casinos). Table play was up 10% but luck didn’t favor the house, which only saw a 1% increase in revenue. Slots were the culprit for the decline, down 10% on lower coin-in. Borgata<\/strong> ($72 million) remained impervious to market forces, up 19%. Coin-in there was up 12% and the win rose 7%. Borgata table games revenue increased an insane 53% even though customers played only 2% more money. Internet<\/strong> gaming revenue also provided Atlantic City with a cushion, bringing in $12.5 million.<\/p>\n

Due to a glitch with J.P. Morgan<\/strong> software, numbers for the non-Borgata casinos were not immediately available.<\/p>\n

* When Full House Resorts<\/strong> deferred a potential magazine profile, I thought something was up. Indeed something was. Full House CEO Dan Lee<\/strong> is proposing a casino for what used to be the terminal (more specifically the former rental-car hub) of the Indianapolis<\/strong> airport. \"DanLee\"<\/a>He describes it as a “a lifestyle center … anchored by a small casino” which would draw fly-in business from other states. The specifics of the proposal, American Place<\/strong>, include a skating rink, 20o condos, a $150 million casino, a 25-suite hotel for high rollers, a movie theater, health club and 700,000 square feet of retail, all connected by a tram.<\/p>\n

Anticipating the oft-articulated concerns of Indiana<\/strong> Gov. Mike Pence<\/strong> (R), Lee says this wouldn’t be an expansion of gaming in the Hoosier State. Instead, 50% of struggling Rising Sun<\/strong>‘s 1,400 gaming positions would be relocated to Indianapolis. (The move would require legislative approval<\/a>.) No one has proposed a casino for Indianapolis\u00a0in years and we have to hand it to Lee for thinking outside the box on this one, in a move born to some degree of desperation: Lee says Rising Sun revenues have fallen 75% since the advent of casino gambling in Ohio<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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The Indianapolis Star<\/em> describes Lee’s proposal as “a hard sell. Centaur Gaming<\/strong>, owner of two nearby racinos was quick to lash out, calling it “ludicrous to believe that the legislature would permit the holder of a gaming license to ‘divide up’ its license and operate from different locations,” citing the rejection of a proposal by Majestic Star<\/strong> to do something similar with its riverboats. Lawmakers contacted by the newspaper tended to agree, noting that once you start subdividing gaming licenses, where do you stop?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Faced with a casino that had been generating negative return on investment for the past two years, Isle of Capri Casinos announced it was closing its 15-year-old\u00a0Natchez riverboat and selling the accompanying hotel to Magnolia Bluffs Casino for $11.5 million.\u00a0The … 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":[23,60,145,68,85,191,35,71,33,111,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16555"}],"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=16555"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16562,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16555\/revisions\/16562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}