{"id":18217,"date":"2016-05-09T09:16:15","date_gmt":"2016-05-09T17:16:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=18217"},"modified":"2016-05-09T09:16:15","modified_gmt":"2016-05-09T17:16:15","slug":"warm-spring-for-indiana-trouble-ahead-for-packer-and-ho","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/warm-spring-for-indiana-trouble-ahead-for-packer-and-ho\/","title":{"rendered":"Warm spring for Indiana; Trouble ahead for Packer and Ho"},"content":{"rendered":"

While Illinois<\/strong> casinos were flat last month, the action was livelier next door in Indiana<\/strong>. Admissions declined 4%, meaning that players were spending 9%, as casino revenues rose \"aztarclose\"5%. The percentage champion was Tropicana Evansville<\/strong>, up 17% on an $11 million gross. Other casinos enjoying notably good fortune were Full House Resorts<\/strong>‘\u00a0Rising Sun<\/strong> ($4 million), ascending\u00a016%, French Lick Resort<\/strong> ($7 million), up 12%, and Indiana Downs<\/strong> ($23 million), prospering 10%. The only casino to outgross Indiana Downs was Horseshoe Hammond<\/strong> ($37 million), up 1%. Although there were no\u00a0dramatic fluctuations at the other casinos, all did well except for Majestic Star II<\/strong> ($6 million), incrementally down, and Belterra<\/strong> ($9 million), minus 4%.<\/p>\n

Healthy grosses were seen both at Ameristar East Chicago<\/strong> (+6%) and Horseshoe Southern Indiana<\/strong> (flat), both making $21 million. Hoosier Park<\/strong> raked in $18 million (+4%), while Hollywood Lawrenceburg<\/strong> (+4%, $16 million) has never been quite the same since casinos came to Ohio<\/strong>. Boyd Gaming<\/strong> posted a healthy $14 million gross and 5% increase at Blue Chip<\/strong>, while Majestic Star I<\/strong> grossed $9 million, good for a 5.5% increase.<\/p>\n

* Lawrence Ho<\/strong> and James Packer<\/strong> may be regretting pulling the Studio City Macau<\/strong> project back from the brink of death.\u00a0\u201cThe casino has mass operation with no VIP and very limited high-end premium mass play. Consequently, it takes a longer time to ramp and \"Studiodrive profitability,\u201d\u00a0said the analysts at Sanford C. Bernstein<\/strong>. The bad news for Melco Crown Entertainment<\/strong> doesn’t end there. Union Gaming<\/strong> analyst Grant Govertsen<\/strong> sees an impending danger\u00a0from Wynn Palace<\/strong>:\u00a0\u201cWe can\u2019t get over the mounting competitive threats that will be faced by all casinos but especially by Melco Crown\u2019s City of Dreams<\/strong> (for both its customers and its operating staff) as Wynn Palace comes online in August and competes aggressively for a very similar premium customer in a segment of the market that, while stabilizing, isn\u2019t showing signs of growth (yet).” Unlike the happy-days-are-here-again tone affected by Steve Wynn<\/strong> and Sheldon Adelson<\/strong>, Ho minced few words about the “very tough operating environment” in Macao. In a nod to the string-pullers in Beijing<\/strong>, he added,\u00a0\u201cWe believe our business approaches are in line with the government\u2019s new direction from a macroeconomic and social perspective.\u201d\u00a0He better hope so.<\/p>\n

* Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> should be glad that a planned casino in Azov City<\/strong>, Russia<\/strong>, never came to fruition. Soviet strongman Vladimir Putin<\/strong> has signed legislation to shutter the Azov City casinos in 2019 and concentrate casino business in Sochi<\/strong> instead.<\/p>\n

* “Mr. Trump\u2019s companies had sometimes been able to retire debt at a discount because creditors feared they might default.” Donald Trump<\/strong>‘s fiscal policies appear to have been borrowed<\/a> (pun unintended) from his casino days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While Illinois casinos were flat last month, the action was livelier next door in Indiana. Admissions declined 4%, meaning that players were spending 9%, as casino revenues rose 5%. The percentage champion was Tropicana Evansville, up 17% on an $11 … 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":[40,60,42,198,7,68,22,96,94,62,191,93,69,30,111,12,32,21,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18217"}],"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=18217"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18218,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18217\/revisions\/18218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}