{"id":17794,"date":"2016-02-26T12:10:42","date_gmt":"2016-02-26T20:10:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=17794"},"modified":"2023-07-18T06:24:02","modified_gmt":"2023-07-18T14:24:02","slug":"scientifics-surprising-results-gaming-advancing-in-georgia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/scientifics-surprising-results-gaming-advancing-in-georgia\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientific’s surprising results; Gaming advancing in Georgia"},"content":{"rendered":"

An upturn in the replacement cycle (8,990 slots shipped) helped Scientific Games<\/strong> post a 10% revenue increase last quarter. A mix of impairment charges, writedowns and consolidation costs led the mega-supplier to a $128 million loss for the quarter, but \"scientific-games-corp-logo\"Scientific’s performance still played to rave reviews on Wall Street<\/strong>. “Revenues and EBITDA of $737m and $293m exceeded our $675m and $274m, respectively,” wrote JP Morgan<\/strong> analyst Joseph Greff<\/strong>, noting that the interactive-gaming segment outperformed expectations (up 28%) but cautioning that a China<\/strong> lottery contract had expired. Revenue-participation and leased games were up, and the plurality of new-market growth in the U.S. was attributable to slot routes in Illinois<\/strong>. Given a rather flat replacement cycle in the casino industry, “noted that it expects the business to remain solid and experience modest growth, though quarterly results will likely remain lumpy.”<\/p>\n

As for social gaming, Scientific had placed its Universe<\/strong> brand in 60 casinos. Greff forecast that Scientific’s free cash flow would be plowed into retiring debt, of which it is carrying a hefty $7.8 billion. The company shaved a $27 million sliver off that last quarter. “When a no expectations stock with meaningful financial leverage beats expectations, how they got there sometimes doesn’t matter,” wrote Deutsche Bank<\/strong>‘s Carlo Santarelli<\/strong>, adding that Scientific “handily beat 4Q15 forecasts, but we don’t believe the road ahead is any easier.”<\/p>\n

* Gaming legalization continued its improbable march through Georgia<\/strong> this week, as casino enabling legislation passed out of committee<\/a>. The bill downsized the number of casinos to four (two in Atlanta<\/strong>) and hiked the tax rate from 12% to 20%, in hopes of bringing in $280 million-$300 million of revenue, 90% of which would be dedicated education funding. University of Illinois<\/strong> professor John Kindt<\/strong> was imported to give his familiar anti-casino spiel.\u00a0\u201cGambling doesn\u2019t generate economic development. Crime and bankruptcies will ultimately go up as a result,\u201d he warned. The full House has to vote on the bill by Monday or it’s back to Square One.<\/p>\n

* Compounding his attempts to derail Wynn Everett<\/strong>, obstructionist Somerville<\/strong> Mayor Joseph Curtatone<\/strong> is now trying to scupper Wynn Resorts<\/strong>‘ planned pedestrian bridge, \"Curtatone\"severing access between Somerville and Everett<\/strong>. Cutting off his nose to spite his face<\/a>, Curtatone would interdict foot traffic between the casino and his Assembly Row<\/strong> mixed-use development across the Mystic River<\/strong>. After offering qualified support to the idea of a bridge as a partial alleviation of traffic problems, Curtatone is now singing a different tune.\u00a0\u201cA footbridge would benefit Steve Wynn<\/strong> and Steve Wynn only.\u00a0Wynn is looking to tap into the success of Assembly Row to get more people to his craps table,\u201d warbled Curtatone.<\/p>\n

When Hizzoner’s office was asked to explain the volte-face<\/em>, a Somerville spokeswoman said,\u00a0“We risk Assembly Row being turned into overflow parking for the casino, pulling even more casino traffic through our roadways and exposing Assembly Row businesses to the well-documented adverse effects that casinos have been shown to have on nearby businesses.” It seems like every time Wynn extends the hand of friendship to Massachusetts<\/strong>, it gets slapped away.<\/p>\n

* In one of his first interviews as president of Sands China<\/strong>, Wilfred Wong<\/strong> performed \"the-parisian\"impressively. \u201cIt\u2019s scary that Macao<\/strong>\u2019s gross gaming revenue has seen declines for 20 months but I have confidence the drop could end in February,\u201d he said. He added that the company “won’t complain” if it only gets 250 table games, a dramatic contrast to Steve Wynn<\/strong>‘s noisy recalcitrance on the issue (causing Wynn to have to remove his foot from way down in his mouth). To boost interest in The Parisian<\/strong>, Sands may open its faux<\/em> Eiffel Tower<\/strong> ahead of the rest of the megaresort, a canny marketing move<\/a>. Wong’s boss, Sheldon Adelson<\/strong>, continues to play his cards just right in the Macao market.<\/p>\n

* Resorts Atlantic City<\/strong> will finally deploy PokerStars<\/strong> in March, after additional testing, offering a full repertory of casino games. Given PokerStars’ brand equity, it will be interesting to see how dramatically this reshapes the New Jersey<\/strong> online-gaming picture.<\/p>\n

* Casinos in Thailand<\/strong> could be a $2.8 billion boon in tax revenues<\/a>, according to a new study. However, the Thai government remains opposed to their legalization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An upturn in the replacement cycle (8,990 slots shipped) helped Scientific Games post a 10% revenue increase last quarter. A mix of impairment charges, writedowns and consolidation costs led the mega-supplier to a $128 million loss for the quarter, but … 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":[23,14,152,58,22,37,62,112,167,178,90,160,12,32,8,100,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17794"}],"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=17794"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32762,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17794\/revisions\/32762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}