{"id":19789,"date":"2017-06-02T07:58:34","date_gmt":"2017-06-02T15:58:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=19789"},"modified":"2023-08-18T02:46:27","modified_gmt":"2023-08-18T10:46:27","slug":"macao-resurgence-continues-skill-based-slots-get-second-wind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/macao-resurgence-continues-skill-based-slots-get-second-wind\/","title":{"rendered":"Macao resurgence continues; Skill-based slots get second wind"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As <strong>Galaxy Entertainment<\/strong> CEO <strong>Lui-Che Woo<\/strong> is fond of pointing out, it will take two years of positive results before <strong>Macao<\/strong> can be said to have recovered from its revenue collapse. That being said, May&#8217;s <img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-16326\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Macau-casinos0.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Macau-casinos0.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Macau-casinos0-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>results &#8212; 24% up &#8212; were impressive, although <strong>Wall Street<\/strong> analysts tried to maintain a business-as-usual fa\u00e7ade. &#8220;While stronger than forecasts, we don\u2019t expect the result to come as a meaningful surprise given the recent checks,&#8221; wrote <strong>Deutsche Bank<\/strong>&#8216;s <strong>Carlo Santarelli<\/strong>. He predicts &#8220;continued, though decelerating, double digit growth&#8221; through the end of the year and is raising his projection for year-long growth by three percentage points.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JP Morgan<\/strong> analyst <strong>Joseph Greff<\/strong> credited Labor Day and Dragon Boat Festival\u00a0with some of <!--more-->the boomlet. He also speculated that VIP play was driving the growth, leading him to write, &#8220;we have to wonder that if this level, or even lower levels, of growth, is sustainable, does the government want to recalibrate policy to bring this growth rate down?&#8221; He concluded, &#8220;Given &#8230;\u00a0our low confidence in VIP revenue and earnings, we don\u2019t find the risk-rewards for our US-listed Macau-centric gaming names all that compelling.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>* &#8220;We can do all the prototyping, focus groups, and game nights we want, but there is nothing like a live environment to learn from,&#8221; said <strong>GameCo<\/strong> President <strong>Blaine Graboyes<\/strong>, whose latest learning experience was having <strong>Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> jank all the GameCo skill-based slots from its <strong>Atlantic City<\/strong> casinos, where they weren&#8217;t making their nut. GameCo&#8217;s next move will be to add a &#8220;top winner&#8221; screen that shows who the best competitors have been. Caesars claims to be &#8220;100% committed&#8221; to the SBS concept, despite having aborted the Atlantic City experiment. (Some say SBS machines belong in the table games pit.)<\/p>\n<p>As proof, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.northjersey.com\/story\/news\/business\/meadowlands-matters\/2017\/05\/30\/video-game-gambling-casinos-still-early-stages\/354528001\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"broken_link\">a second wave of SBS is coming<\/a> in the form of <em>Space Invaders<\/em> games, while <strong>Borgata<\/strong> has retaliated with a Simpsons-based machine. And the <strong>Tropicana Las Vegas<\/strong> is still on the SBS bandwagon. The machines exiled from the three Caesars Boardwalk casinos will be repurposed at <strong>Foxwoods Resort Casino<\/strong>, which needs something to juice its slot revenues. <em>Nothing But Net<\/em> is a success story, doing an industry-average $200\/slot\/day but GameCo is going to phase it out for a new edition, and\u00a0<em>Danger Arena<\/em> will be retired in favor of <em>Terminator 2<\/em> machines.<\/p>\n<p>* Ol&#8217; Rusty Pipes, Mr. <strong>Wayne Newton<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.miamiherald.com\/entertainment\/article153433734.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"broken_link\">takes his tired act on the road<\/a> to <strong>Seminole Casino Coconut Creek<\/strong> this weekend. Haven&#8217;t Native Americans suffered enough?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As Galaxy Entertainment CEO Lui-Che Woo is fond of pointing out, it will take two years of positive results before Macao can be said to have recovered from its revenue collapse. That being said, May&#8217;s results &#8212; 24% up &#8212; &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/macao-resurgence-continues-skill-based-slots-get-second-wind\/\">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":[23,14,166,201,218,7,62,11,10,8,20,21,38,138],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19789"}],"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=19789"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32861,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19789\/revisions\/32861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}