{"id":20689,"date":"2017-11-30T11:40:39","date_gmt":"2017-11-30T19:40:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=20689"},"modified":"2017-11-30T11:41:15","modified_gmt":"2017-11-30T19:41:15","slug":"strip-loses-locals-joints-win-aristocrat-hooks-big-fish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/strip-loses-locals-joints-win-aristocrat-hooks-big-fish\/","title":{"rendered":"Strip loses, locals joints win; Aristocrat hooks Big Fish"},"content":{"rendered":"

Given the robustness of October 2017, last month’s Las Vegas Strip<\/strong> revenues ($529 million) were already facing a difficult comparison and the Stephen Paddock<\/strong> shooting \"\"spree didn’t help matters. Gambling revenues fell 6% last month along Las Vegas Boulevard<\/strong>. (Statewide, gaming revenues were flat.) A 6% drop-off in baccarat wagers translated into flat casino win, while non-baccarat table games were big losers — down 13% — for the house, as wagering slipped \u00a07%. The only place where the house was even slightly lucky was slot win, down 3.5% on 4% less coin-in.<\/p>\n

A tough, +10% comparison with last year didn’t deter locals casinos, who won 13% more this year, pretty phenomenal when you think about it. Admittedly, a little bit of September revenue was stashed in there, the month having ended on a weekend, but if that’s the case what’s the Strip’s excuse? Downtown<\/strong> ($63.5 million) did just fine, up 10%, while the Boulder Strip<\/strong> ($79 million) shot up 17%. North Las Vegas<\/strong> ($27 million) was good for an 11.5% jump and miscellaneous Clark County<\/strong> ($104 million) was up 11%. Laughlin<\/strong> ($42 million) even eked out a 2.5% climb. Reno<\/strong> ($53.5 million) was up 3% and Lake Tahoe<\/strong> ($16.5 million) was as volatile as ever, up 16%.<\/p>\n

* Churchill Downs<\/strong> has announced the sale of its Big Fish Games<\/strong> offshoot to Aristocrat Technologies<\/strong>. The $990 million sale price is deemed “a fair value” by JP Morgan<\/strong> analyst Daniel Politzer<\/strong>. If it looks like Aristocrat paid a pretty penny for Big Fish, it did: 12X cash flow. Morgan analysts had valued Big Fish at $937 million, so Aristocrat was evidently willing to fork over\u00a0a premium to get it. Politzer looked favorably on Churchill Downs’ pivot away from social gaming, and back toward racinos and horse tracks. It’s a profitable\u00a0cashout for Churchill, which bought Big Fish three years ago for $835 million. The transaction is expected to close at the end of March.<\/p>\n

* Now that Penn & Teller<\/strong> are in the slot-machine business, could we see a slot version of Desert Bus<\/em>, ominously dubbed “the worst video game ever made<\/a>.” (Hey, even Homer<\/strong> nods.) Considering that the new incarnation of Desert Bus<\/em> is an Oculus Rift<\/strong>-powered virtual-reality incarnation, it’s no great stretch of the imagine to foresee it popping up alongside skill-based slots in places like MGM Grand<\/strong>‘s Level Up<\/strong> lounge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Given the robustness of October 2017, last month’s Las Vegas Strip revenues ($529 million) were already facing a difficult comparison and the Stephen Paddock shooting spree didn’t help matters. Gambling revenues fell 6% last month along Las Vegas Boulevard. (Statewide, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7903,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[106,88,176,51,4,37,76,49,228,126,78,79,8,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20689"}],"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=20689"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20690,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20689\/revisions\/20690"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}