{"id":23026,"date":"2018-12-05T06:41:42","date_gmt":"2018-12-05T14:41:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=23026"},"modified":"2018-12-05T06:41:42","modified_gmt":"2018-12-05T14:41:42","slug":"casino-comes-to-arkansas-luxury-comes-at-a-cost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/casino-comes-to-arkansas-luxury-comes-at-a-cost\/","title":{"rendered":"Casino comes to Arkansas; Luxury comes at a cost"},"content":{"rendered":"

That was quick. Downstream Development Authority<\/strong>, a branch of the Quapaw Tribe<\/strong>, has been tapped by local officials to develop a casino in Pine Bluff<\/strong>, Arkansas<\/strong>. If you think the decision precipitate, don’t \"\"worry: The Quapaw have been doing outreach for five years now and a news reports states that “it seems unlikely that another applicant will emerge.” Anyone who does will have to have both local backing and casino experience. We can think of a lot of people with the latter but without the former. (Considering that Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> is drawing down its operations in Tunica<\/strong> was it was of them to have dynamited all their bridges to Arkansas?)<\/p>\n

For now, everyone involved is treating the benediction\u00a0of the Arkansas Racing Commission<\/strong> as a mere formality<\/a>. Saracen Casino Resort<\/strong> is being predicted to open within a year, which seems hasty, but we suppose anything is possible if the Quapaw put their mind to it.<\/p>\n

* Though you’d think value was driving hotel occupancies, it turns out that luxury hotels are outperforming the sector as a whole, with occupancy in the 74.5% range, compared to 66% for the entire \"\"industry. (Good news for luxury-mad Las Vegas<\/strong>, obviously.) Part of the trend is chalked up to a lack of competition<\/a> up there in the luxury stratosphere. But demand is also outstripping development. \u201cAs good a recovery as we have gone through, the market values for luxury hotels have still not caught up to replacement cost,\u201d opines lodging boffin R. Mark Woodworth<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

“Luxury hotels are also often located on expensive development sites in prime locations and decked out with costly, high-end finishes,” \"\"reports National Real Estate Investor<\/em>, and come with amenities like on-property restaurants\u00a0and convention space. (Sound familiar?) \u201cThe cost to build a full-service hotel is so high. You can have one full-service hotel or six limited-service hotels,\u201d says STR<\/strong> senior veep Jan Freitag<\/strong>. There’s also the question of financing, hard to get nowadays. (Just ask Genting Group<\/strong> in re<\/em> Resorts World Las Vegas<\/strong>, or Jackie Robinson<\/strong> of All-Net Arena<\/strong> obscurity, or Lucky Dragon Casino<\/strong> or … ) Part of that hesitation is because — note well, MGM Resorts International<\/strong> — money men are leery of the downturn in convention business that accompanies hard times. Luxury hotels are also more labor-intensive, a disincentive during a period which is seeing unemployment just under 4%, putting upward pressure on wages. But if you’ve already got a fully staffed, amenity-laden, luxury hotel — hey, you’ve landed in clover.<\/p>\n

* Steve Ruddock<\/strong> crunches the possibilities for online gambling \"\"and sports betting in the 2019 legislative session, and picks likely winners and losers. (Best line: describing Assemblyman Gary Pretlow<\/strong>‘s perennial alibis for inability to pass legislation as “a carousel of excuses.”) Ruddock puts Illinois<\/strong> and West Virginia<\/strong> toward the front of the queue<\/a>, New York State<\/strong> and Michigan<\/strong> toward the back, with Connecticut<\/strong> somewhere in the middle. Prospects in New York and Michigan are dimmed somewhat by the retirements of state senators and Net-bet champs John Bonacic<\/strong> (R pictured<\/em>) and Mike Kowall<\/strong> (R) respectively.<\/p>\n

*\u00a0Millennials in Macao<\/strong> seem to want the same thing from slots as their American counterparts: smarter machines with greater interactivity. So says Robin Bernhard<\/strong> of BMM Testlabs<\/strong>. It may not be a pressing issue for Macanese casinos, which derive less than 5% \"\"of their gross gaming revenue from slots. BMM proposes a variety of solutions<\/a>, including acceptance of bitcoin, incorporation of e-sports and simultaneous ability to place sports bets. It’s a much more ambitious slate of changes that was ushered in by server-based gambling, whose pushers couldn’t envision player benefits beyond being able to order drinks and buy show tickets from the casino floor. Bitcoin would be a difficult regulatory hurdle, as cryptocurrency is prohibited in Macao. Even BMM concedes that players might not want to share personal data with a slot machine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That was quick. Downstream Development Authority, a branch of the Quapaw Tribe, has been tapped by local officials to develop a casino in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. If you think the decision precipitate, don’t worry: The Quapaw have been doing outreach … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[179,244,251,14,58,37,62,53,245,101,33,243,8,20,139],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23026"}],"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=23026"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23028,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23026\/revisions\/23028"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}