{"id":18179,"date":"2016-04-28T09:43:49","date_gmt":"2016-04-28T17:43:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=18179"},"modified":"2016-04-28T12:40:11","modified_gmt":"2016-04-28T20:40:11","slug":"strip-disappoints-in-march-genting-pulls-out-of-macao","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/strip-disappoints-in-march-genting-pulls-out-of-macao\/","title":{"rendered":"Strip disappoints in March; Genting pulls out of Macao"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just when Wall Street<\/strong> expected levels of revenue on the Las Vegas Strip<\/strong> to rise in March, business did a head-fake and dropped 4%. Again, “the Easter shift” is being \"The+LINQ_Exterior\"blamed but stock analysts should have seen that coming. (A 3% increase in visitation<\/a> also appears to contradict it.) It’s what they’re paid to do. Casinos on the Strip grossed $487 million, with slot revenue off 5% on flat coin-in (bad luck for the house), while baccarat wagering fell a staggering 29%, although here luck was with<\/em> the house, the revenue decline being only 4%. However, this is long-term cause for worry, what with baccarat betting being down for six straight months and 10 of the last 11. JP Morgan<\/strong> analyst Joseph Greff<\/strong> predicts this trend will “moderate” but not go into reverse. “Overall, we continue to think that the LV Strip can generate mid-single digit [room-revenue growth]\u00a0and low single digit visitation growth,” he added. Other table games brought in 3% less, roughly commensurate with the dip in wagers.<\/p>\n

Locals played very slightly more at the slots but revenue was still down 2%, while a 9% decrease in table game play meant 10% less revenue. Downtown<\/strong> business was off 4%, the Boulder Strip<\/strong> 7.5% and North Las Vegas<\/strong> was down 9%. The nebulous “balance of Clark County<\/strong>.” however, was up 2.5%. Laughlin<\/strong> was down 2% but the Easter Bunny was very good to Lake Tahoe<\/strong>, which leapt 23%. Reno<\/strong> eked out a 1% increase, but outlying jurisdictions felt the blahs, with Elko<\/strong> down 9% and Carson Valley<\/strong> off by 4.5%.<\/p>\n

* Unlike the government of Atlantic City<\/strong>, key union Unite-Here Local 54<\/strong> is in good financial shape<\/a> despite losing 32% of its membership. President Robert McDevitt<\/strong> has tightened the union’s belt, reducing staffing considerably. Or, as he told The Press of Atlantic City<\/em>,\u00a0“We’ve had to make a lot of very difficult decisions over the last 10 years.” \"hilton-atlantic-city-casino-hotel\"The paper also reports that McDevitt has “significant cash on hand,” which could prove useful if the local decides to go on strike against Trump Taj Mahal<\/strong>, whose workers have been reduced to second-class citizens in the Boardwalk’s casino economy.<\/p>\n

Events are also moving in McDevitt’s favor. Area casinos haveingrecently declared a 40% increase in operating profits, Local 54 is well-positioned to demand salary increases in contract negotiations, later this year. The Press<\/em> opines that casino owners won’t try to bust McDevitt’s balls: “Jobs with good benefit levels were a central goal of legalized gambling in New Jersey<\/strong>, and to this day casinos pay a much smaller tax on their gambling revenue as part of that original deal — 9 percent compared with 55 percent for Pennsylvania<\/strong> casinos.” Besides, they need all the good publicity they can get as they fight to keep their exclusivity in the Garden State.<\/p>\n

* Add Michigan<\/strong> to the number of states whose lawmakers are considering Internet gambling, as momentum continues to swing in the pastime’s favor. The Lawful Internet \"Kowall\"Gaming Act<\/strong>, brainchild of state Sen. Mike Kowall<\/strong>, would permit eight licenses, at an entry fee of $5 million each, plus a 10% tax on gross revenues. Michigan’s private-sector and tribal casinos would be first in line to bid on the licenses. What’s distinctively different about Kowall’s bill is that, rather than restricting play to Michigan residents, it would free operators to accept wagers from out of state<\/a>. As with most such bills, we expect rough sledding at first, followed by a gradual lessening of resistance, particularly if Michigan finds itself in a tight budgetary squeeze.<\/p>\n

* Don’t hold your breath that Resorts World Las Vegas<\/strong> is going to have that projected panda habitat. Relations between China<\/strong> and Genting Group<\/strong>, never particularly warm, are cooling further as the latter phases out\u00a0its Genting Star<\/strong> subsidiary in Macao<\/strong>. Genting had been planning to build a Cotai<\/strong> hotel, with a Stanley Ho<\/strong>-run casino. (Well, run by Ho’s underlings, as the Macanese casino godfather is little more than a vegetable nowadays.) Singapore<\/strong> authorities, who frown upon Ho, were cool to the idea<\/a>. And since Singapore is one of Genting’s bread-and-butter markets, what its regulators say carries considerable weight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just when Wall Street expected levels of revenue on the Las Vegas Strip to rise in March, business did a head-fake and dropped 4%. Again, “the Easter shift” is being blamed but stock analysts should have seen that coming. (A … 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":[88,51,14,120,37,76,49,62,78,25,79,108,61,31,9,19,21,196,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18179"}],"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=18179"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18195,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18179\/revisions\/18195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}