{"id":18303,"date":"2016-05-27T10:37:17","date_gmt":"2016-05-27T18:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=18303"},"modified":"2016-05-27T12:38:27","modified_gmt":"2016-05-27T20:38:27","slug":"lean-april-in-las-vegas-boyd-stands-pat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/lean-april-in-las-vegas-boyd-stands-pat\/","title":{"rendered":"Lean April in Las Vegas; Boyd stands pat"},"content":{"rendered":"

April saw mixed fortunes\u00a0the Las Vegas Strip<\/strong>. Although overall gambling revenue was only up 1.5%, winning percentages tended to favor the house by considerable amounts. For \"wynn-pic\"instance, although baccarat players wagered 21% more but house win was up 10%. “While we expect the market to continue experiencing volatility in baccarat play given a slowdown in Chinese players, this drag should moderate,” wrote JP Morgan<\/strong> analyst Joseph Greff<\/strong>. Other table games (in which Nevada<\/strong> now includes poker) saw 11% higher wagering but less than 2% more house win. Players were luckiest at the slots, with casino win down 4% on 1.5% higher coin-in. In an odd accounting quirk, slot handle was fully counted (although April ended on a Saturday) but revenue was not.<\/p>\n

Downtown Las Vegas<\/strong> had a bad month, off 13.5%, while North Las Vegas<\/strong> dropped 14% and the Boulder Strip<\/strong> dropped off a staggering 19%. The rest of Clark County<\/strong> was flat, despite an 8% surge in Mesquite<\/strong>. Laughlin<\/strong> dipped slightly, down 4%, while Reno<\/strong> was up a robust 18.5% but Lake Tahoe<\/strong> fell 12.5%. At least it was a good month for Elko<\/strong>, up 12%. Sports also continued to be a strong bastion, setting a record level for the month<\/a>, and continuing a growth trend that spans the last three years.<\/p>\n

* Greff, having put a “Buy” recommendation on Station Casinos<\/strong> this week, sat down with the leadership of its main rival, Boyd Gaming<\/strong>. He went “away from these meetings positive on the stock here, with our views intact that BYD\u2019s Las Vegas Locals and \"boyd-gaming-200\"Downtown Las Vegas segments have healthy and attractive [cash flow] growth potential,” and with similar sentiments toward Boyd’s regional properties. Boyd described the Las Vegas customer base as more diversified than before and relatively low (55,000) on construction workers, adding that there’s a time lapse before new Las Vegans begin patronizing locals casinos. As for its recent shopping spree, Boyd “does not expect an additional wave of properties to come up for sale as they noted each of the assets sold had less than long-term investors\/owners with motivations to sell.”<\/p>\n

While Boyd continues to toy with REIT conversion, it doesn’t appear to be a high priority. As for its Atlantic City<\/strong> front, leadership doesn’t think that northern New Jersey<\/strong> casinos could be open before 2021. Additionally, “management noted lack of specificity in terms of gaming tax rate, minimum spend\/amenities, etc., so it is difficult to gauge the potential ROI for such a project (if it were to throw its hat in the ring),” Greff noted.<\/p>\n

\"NFL\"* The American Gaming Association<\/strong>‘s recent blast at the NFL<\/strong> lit a fire under the New York Daily News<\/em>‘ Evan Grossman<\/strong>. He busted out an infographic<\/a> showing that at least six NFL teams currently are within walking distance of a casino (or will be, once the vagabond Rams<\/strong> return to Los Angeles<\/strong>). Obviously feeling the pressure to move the [your city here<\/strong>] Raiders<\/strong> to Las Vegas, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell<\/strong> called such talk “very premature,” adding, “there is not a proposal that at least Mark<\/strong> [Davis<\/strong>] has presented to us.”<\/p>\n

* “From the Las Vegas Strip you can’t tell that more than 60 people have been murdered in Las Vegas this year,” said FBI<\/strong> Director James Comey<\/strong> on a tragic rise in violent fatalities<\/a> in Sin City. The upsurge hasn’t spared the Strip, whether it was the case of a sightseer being run over on a sidewalk to a couple of proverbial innocent bystanders being grazed by gunfire in a shooting in front of Bellagio<\/strong>. Criticisms for this bloodbath run the gamut from questioning\u00a0of Sheriff Joe Lombardo<\/strong>‘s force-allocation policies to decrying a shortage of cops. But police cost money and Las Vegans are notoriously taxophobic. Are they willing to pay the cost of safer streets?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

April saw mixed fortunes\u00a0the Las Vegas Strip. Although overall gambling revenue was only up 1.5%, winning percentages tended to favor the house by considerable amounts. For instance, although baccarat players wagered 21% more but house win was up 10%. “While … 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":[23,60,34,51,14,26,76,49,189,78,79,74,9,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18303"}],"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=18303"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18307,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18303\/revisions\/18307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}