{"id":17729,"date":"2016-02-16T15:01:47","date_gmt":"2016-02-16T23:01:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=17729"},"modified":"2016-02-17T13:24:35","modified_gmt":"2016-02-17T21:24:35","slug":"plainridge-bounces-back-unhappy-new-year-in-louisiana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/plainridge-bounces-back-unhappy-new-year-in-louisiana\/","title":{"rendered":"Plainridge bounces back; Unhappy new year in Louisiana"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Plainridge.jpg\" class=\"broken_link\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-12980\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Plainridge-300x156.jpg\" alt=\"Plainridge\" width=\"300\" height=\"156\" \/><\/a>Penn National Gaming<\/strong> has been rather defensive &#8212; and understandably so &#8212; about the performance of <strong>Plainridge Park<\/strong>, which has seen business steadily decline from month to month. However, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bostonglobe.com\/metro\/2016\/02\/16\/plainridge-gambling-revenue-shoots-million-january\/YShKaEDht9rBIELiGYj1PK\/story.html\" target=\"_blank\">Penn reversed the slippage last month<\/a>, increasing revenues 11%. Penn spent some money to make money, loosening up on promotional outlays to the tune of $2 million (a 32% increase from December). It also tightened the hold on the slots a little bit, too. Penn giveth, Penn taketh away.<\/p>\n<p>The company has been especially prickly about any criticism of the performance of its slots and the amounts it&#8217;s making are <!--more-->pretty staggering: $323 slot\/day, far more than any other casino for which Penn shares its slot-win numbers. So, no, the sky is not falling. Plainridge Park is here to stay.<\/p>\n<p>*\u00a0Compared to a robust January 2014, last month&#8217;s numbers in <strong>Louisiana<\/strong> were anemic, with <strong>Lake Charles<\/strong> down 9% and <strong>New Orleans<\/strong> off 7%. In the former market, <strong>L&#8217;Auberge du Lac<\/strong> struggled, falling 8% on a $26 million gross but <strong>Golden Nugget Lake Charles<\/strong> had an even harder time of it, falling 18% on revenues of $19 million. <strong>Boyd Gaming<\/strong>&#8216;s <strong>Delta Downs<\/strong> was flat.<\/p>\n<p>The New Orleans smoking ban continued to make itself felt, with <strong>Harrah&#8217;s New Orleans<\/strong> diving 14% ($25 million) and <strong>Churchill Downs<\/strong>&#8216; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Horseshoe-Bossier.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-16112\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Horseshoe-Bossier.jpg\" alt=\"Horseshoe Bossier\" width=\"192\" height=\"262\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Horseshoe-Bossier.jpg 192w, https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Horseshoe-Bossier-110x150.jpg 110w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 192px) 100vw, 192px\" \/><\/a><strong>Fair Grounds<\/strong> racino ($3.5 million) down 12%. Boyd&#8217;s <strong>Treasure Chest<\/strong> picked up 4% more business ($8.5 million) and <strong>Pinnacle Entertainment<\/strong>&#8216;s <strong>Boomtown New Orleans<\/strong> ($9 million) did likewise. In the case of Boyd, it was virtually the lone bright spot in otherwise &#8216;blah&#8217; performance by its large Pelican State portfolio. <strong>Sam&#8217;s Town Shreveport<\/strong> swirled down 9%, to $6 million. Tops in the market, with a $17 million and a 7.5% increase was <strong>Horseshoe Bossier<\/strong>. Newcomer <strong>Margaritaville<\/strong> ($12 million) elbowed past <strong>Eldorado Shreveport<\/strong> for the #2 spot in the <strong>Shreveport-Bossier City<\/strong> area.<\/p>\n<p>* Ignoring all evidence to the contrary, <strong>Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> CEO <strong>Mark Frissora<\/strong> proclaims &#8220;Our business is outperforming all of our publicly traded competitors and our own expectations, particularly in <strong>Las Vegas<\/strong>.&#8221; Sorry, Mr. Frissora but that one doesn&#8217;t even pass the laugh test, especially when your <strong>Atlantic City<\/strong> portfolio is tanking. Unfortunately, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamblinginsider.com\/in-depth\/1776\/caesars-ceo-interview-opportunity-in-adversity\">most of his interview is boilerplate<\/a> and, as such, better than Sominex. When asked about the restatement of earnings from his tenure at Hertz, this is what Frissora has to offer, &#8220;I am excited and focused on the opportunity to lead Caesars through its next great phase of growth and transformation.&#8221; Yes, a worthy successor to <strong>Gary Loveman<\/strong> truly has been found.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Penn National Gaming has been rather defensive &#8212; and understandably so &#8212; about the performance of Plainridge Park, which has seen business steadily decline from month to month. However, Penn reversed the slippage last month, increasing revenues 11%. Penn spent &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/plainridge-bounces-back-unhappy-new-year-in-louisiana\/\">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":[60,176,7,84,53,112,69,30,111,129],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17729"}],"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=17729"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17734,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17729\/revisions\/17734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}