{"id":16665,"date":"2015-09-02T09:25:20","date_gmt":"2015-09-02T17:25:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=16665"},"modified":"2015-09-02T09:48:14","modified_gmt":"2015-09-02T17:48:14","slug":"isle-trends-upward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/isle-trends-upward\/","title":{"rendered":"Isle trends upward; Free the Texas ponies!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Add <strong>Isle of Capri Casinos<\/strong> to the list of companies enjoying a positive turn in their fortunes. It reported an operating profit of $57.5 million, a 15% increase. The biggest cash cow was <strong>Isle Pompano Park<\/strong>, hauling <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/Isle-Pompano.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8268\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/Isle-Pompano-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Isle Pompano\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/Isle-Pompano-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/Isle-Pompano-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/Isle-Pompano.jpg 450w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>in $42 million, an 11% uptick. Other big earners were <strong>Isle Casino Hotel\u00a0Black Hawk<\/strong>, with $34 million (+9%) and &#8212; predictably enough &#8212; <strong>Isle of Capri Lake Charles<\/strong> ($32 million), which did <em>lose<\/em> a slight amount of business to the <strong>Golden Nugget<\/strong>. In terms of revenue growth, <strong>Lady Luck\u00a0Nemacolin<\/strong>, in <strong>Pennsylvania<\/strong> (+13%) and <strong>Lady Luck Caruthersville<\/strong> (+12.5%) in <strong>Missouri<\/strong>, both living up to <!--more-->their names. In fact, of the other portfolio, other than Isle Lake Charles, only <strong>Isle of Capri Bettendorf<\/strong>, in the competitive <strong>Quad Cities<\/strong> market, saw a revenue decline, down 8%. Excepting that, those are the kind of numbers <strong>Wall Street<\/strong> likes to see.<\/p>\n<p><script src=\"https:\/\/www.nbcdfw.com\/portableplayer\/?cmsID=323786801&amp;videoID=q9ghKyrTdMqQ&amp;origin=nbcdfw.com&amp;sec=news&amp;subsec=local&amp;width=600&amp;height=360\" type=\"text\/javascript\" charset=\"UTF-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><strong>Texas<\/strong> lawmakers got all het up and left horse players out in the cold (or rather, heat) over the introduction of &#8220;historical racing&#8221; VLTs to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Patrick.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-16668\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Patrick.jpg\" alt=\"Patrick\" width=\"183\" height=\"275\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Patrick.jpg 183w, https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Patrick-100x150.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 183px) 100vw, 183px\" \/><\/a>Lone Star State tracks. It&#8217;s a sideways, sly way of introducing casino gambling to Texas and the Lege responded by shutting down funding to the <strong>Texas Racing Commission<\/strong>, idling tracks statewide at the height of racing season. Historical racing has been a shot in the arm to <strong>Arkansas<\/strong> (much to <strong>Mississippi<\/strong>&#8216;s woe) and <strong>Kentucky<\/strong>, so it&#8217;s easy to see why the TRC would be susceptible to persuasion.\u00a0&#8220;All the surrounding states have alternative gaming, and their purses are a lot better and the horses are going to other states,&#8221; lamented one breeder.<\/p>\n<p>Lt. Gov. <strong>Dan Patrick<\/strong> (above) <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nbcdfw.com\/news\/local\/Racing-Commissions-Funding-Unclear-Amid-Lawmaker-Squabbles-323551031.html\" target=\"_blank\">brokered a compromise<\/a> whereby TRC funding was restored for three months. Aside from saving racing season, it will also give Gov. <strong>Greg Abbott<\/strong> time to fill three vacant <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Nelson.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-16669\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Nelson.jpg\" alt=\"Nelson\" width=\"120\" height=\"160\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Nelson.jpg 120w, https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Nelson-113x150.jpg 113w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 120px) 100vw, 120px\" \/><\/a>seats on the TRC. Fans of historical racing, however, will still have to get past state <strong>Senate Finance Committee<\/strong> chairwoman <strong>Jane Nelson<\/strong> (R), who holds firmly that the VLTs are unconstitutional, citing a <strong>Travis County<\/strong> ruling as precedent. &#8220;Serious doubts have been raised about the leadership of this agency,&#8221; she wrote of the TRC. If the horsey set wants to keep VLTs, it may have to force the issue via a petition drive but it&#8217;s too early to see if things come to that pass.<\/p>\n<p>* Congratulations to <strong>Ken Bossingham<\/strong>, new supremo of global slot operations for <strong>International Game Technology<\/strong>. A slot industry veteran, Bossingham comes to IGT from <strong>American Gaming Systems<\/strong>, a company caught in the tentacles of <strong>Apollo Management<\/strong>. <em>S&amp;G<\/em> is confident\u00a0that Bossingham is just what IGT needs and lauds his hire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Add Isle of Capri Casinos to the list of companies enjoying a positive turn in their fortunes. It reported an operating profit of $57.5 million, a 15% increase. The biggest cash cow was Isle Pompano Park, hauling in $42 million, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/isle-trends-upward\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[179,27,36,67,29,86,85,116,84,35,39,95,33,111,8,114,129,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16665"}],"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=16665"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16674,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16665\/revisions\/16674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}