{"id":22946,"date":"2018-11-19T09:10:16","date_gmt":"2018-11-19T17:10:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=22946"},"modified":"2018-11-19T09:10:16","modified_gmt":"2018-11-19T17:10:16","slug":"churchill-downs-aims-for-nashville-goodbye-sigma-derby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/churchill-downs-aims-for-nashville-goodbye-sigma-derby\/","title":{"rendered":"Churchill Downs aims for Nashville; Goodbye, Sigma Derby"},"content":{"rendered":"

Late last week, Churchill Downs<\/strong> was awarded a racing license in Oak Grove<\/strong>, Kentucky<\/strong>, putting CHDN within an hour’s drive of the Nashville<\/strong> market. The plan is to invest $150 million in a racing oval, a hotel and — most importantly — VLTs. Churchill Downs is \"\"literally going to use its thoroughbreds as stalking horses to creep up upon casino-averse Music City. Wrote JP Morgan<\/strong> analyst Joseph Greff<\/strong>, “We expect construction will commence in the near future, as the license stipulates Standardbred racing dates will begin in October 2019,” helping drive a projected $40 million in cash flow. Greff assumes 1,500 ‘historical racing’ terminals, opining “We use Kentucky Downs<\/strong>\u2019 ~$233\/win\/unit\/day as a proxy (~60 miles from Oak Grove with, 750 machines), and estimate the gaming facility could generate $235 win\/unit\/day, which …\u00a0could imply annual net gaming commissions of $~130m. We believe the hotel will provide a modest EBITDA contribution, as we expect most rooms will be targeted to gaming customers.” $235\/win\/day per device is above average in the slot world so the prospects for Oak Grove must look pretty green. Even if the sport of kings is on wobbly hooves, historical racing has made it a good investment again.<\/p>\n

* Dan Gilbert<\/strong> is sending mixed signals about the Greektown<\/strong> sale as to whether it portends other casino divestitures or not. Meanwhile, buyers Vici Properties<\/strong> and Penn National Gaming<\/strong> are inheriting $400 million in debt, which will impede return on investment. Still, Wall Street<\/strong> is giving the transaction rave notices<\/a>, with Deutsche Bank<\/strong> analyst Carlo Santarelli<\/strong> writing,\u00a0\u201cGiven the reasonable purchase price, the addition of a new\/untapped market for Penn and healthy commercial casino gross gaming revenue in Michigan<\/strong>, we believe the deal is likely to be well received.\u201d Ironically, while Penn was expected to siphon revenue from Detroit<\/strong> into its Ohio<\/strong> casinos, a doomsday scenario that never happened, now it’s hooked up the spigot to Motown directly.<\/p>\n

* In deeply tragic news, MGM Grand<\/strong> has finally run out of spare parts for Sigma Derby<\/strong> and sent the long-in-the-tooth but much-loved racing game to the big glue factory in the sky<\/a>. There are other games like it which MGM could use as a replacement but that would be highly unlikely because Sigma Derby is much slower (read: player-friendlier) than a slot machine and casinos want to churn through our bankroll as quickly as possible, don’t ask me why.<\/p>\n

* VitalVegas<\/em> has a tranche of Las Vegas news that is particularly credible in this M&A-made climate. The best odds from sleuth Scott Roeben<\/strong> have The Rio<\/strong> being sold, perhaps even imploded to make room for an MLB<\/strong> stadium. Gary Loveman<\/strong> tried (and failed) to get $500 million for The Rio when he was Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> CEO and it didn’t merit such a steep price, partly because Loveman had allowed the once-beautiful resort to fall into a state of dilapidation. We’re curious to see if CEO Mark Frissora<\/strong> pulls off a deal on his way out the door. Other Roeben rumors<\/a> include Genting Group<\/strong> making a play for Wynn Resorts<\/strong>. Genting just can’t keep its eye on the Resorts World Las Vegas<\/strong> ball, can it? I’d love to comment on Roeben’s other reports but will wait for you to read them yourselves. At least S&G<\/em> gives credit where it’s due: Global Gaming Business<\/em> dissed VitalVegas<\/em> as “A Vegas-focused blog popular with the locals.”<\/p>\n

* The tortoise-powered Nevada Gaming Control Board<\/strong> is still, slowly investigating Steve Wynn<\/strong>. Why does this matter? Because the NGCB won’t promulgate new regulations on sexual harassment until’s done with Wynn. Considering that the latter is out of the casino business for at least another year, we think the NGCB should pause its Wynn probe instead and get those new sexual-misconduct rules onto the books.<\/p>\n

* Lastly, I had an interesting conversation with my barber about casinos in Georgia<\/strong>. Although he voted for Brian Kemp<\/strong>, who is starchily anti-gambling, my barber wants to see a casino in Augusta<\/strong>. He thinks if gaming companies dangle enough shiny objects in front of Kemp he’ll have a change of mind. It certainly seems myopic to oppose an industry that will invest billions of dollars without asking for a cent in tax breaks. Even if Kemp is overcome, there’s still the deep-pocketed Georgia Lottery<\/strong> to contend with, as it would resent any incursion on its lucrative turf. And if Sheldon Adelson<\/strong> wants to make a good impression he’d better not arrogate gubernatorial parking spaces for his limousine, as he did on his last visit.<\/p>\n

My barber, by the way, had some strong opinions about staying and playing on the Las Vegas Strip<\/strong>. Next time he’ll probably go Downtown<\/strong> instead. His two main points of resentment were the inability to find a good poker room and — wait for it — resort fees. When will Big Gaming get the memo?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Late last week, Churchill Downs was awarded a racing license in Oak Grove, Kentucky, putting CHDN within an hour’s drive of the Nashville market. The plan is to invest $150 million in a racing oval, a hotel and — most … 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":[244,176,154,44,4,120,152,140,116,245,71,69,111,25,232,12,32,8,9,38,233],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22946"}],"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=22946"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22951,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22946\/revisions\/22951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}