{"id":23095,"date":"2018-12-14T09:44:34","date_gmt":"2018-12-14T17:44:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=23095"},"modified":"2022-07-31T06:18:29","modified_gmt":"2022-07-31T14:18:29","slug":"atlantic-city-sparks-controversy-resort-fee-change-at-cosmo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/atlantic-city-sparks-controversy-resort-fee-change-at-cosmo\/","title":{"rendered":"Atlantic City sparks controversy; Resort fee change at Cosmo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Faced with a 9% drop in operating profit at Atlantic City<\/strong> casinos, pundits are squaring off as to whether this means doom for the laggards. Analyst Tony Marino<\/strong> told The Press of Atlantic City<\/em> that it \u201cmight be wise to curb our enthusiasm about the long-term \"\"continuation of positive current casino trends.\u201d He predicted an upward surge next July but “between now and then, the current four-month negative revenue trends among most of the seven [incumbent] operators\u00a0will also likely continue until next summer and perhaps beyond.\u00a0In other words, the hoped-for expansion of Atlantic City\u2019s tourist market demand will continue to lag considerably behind the expansion in casino supply triggered by the two new casinos. … If Atlantic City\u2019s past history has taught us to be realistic, we should anticipate that total year-round demand may not be sufficient to keep all nine casinos profitable by 2020,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n

Stockton University<\/strong> pundit Rummy Pandit<\/strong> called himself “pleasantly surprised”<\/a> by the year\/year revenue increases, saying\u00a0\"\"\u201cThere\u2019s new market segments coming into the city.\u00a0There could be some novelty\u00a0but I don\u2019t necessarily believe it will taper off. The market is going to continue to grow because we\u2019re offering a destination resort.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those pushing the glass-half-empty narrative point to the addition of sports betting and the continued success of Internet<\/strong> gambling as masking an ongoing deterioration. But if casino revenue is increasing via those streams, where’s the problem? Bueller … Bueller?<\/p>\n

* The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas<\/strong> is backing off parking fees, sort of. They will now be rolled into resort fees<\/a>. As for those who are probably exempt from resort fees, the Cosmo is incepting private-jet service for whales. My only question is, What took them so long?<\/p>\n

<\/crickets><\/p>\n

*\u00a0Sports books are slowly coming on line in Pennsylvania<\/strong>. First up was Harrisburg<\/strong>, where Penn National Gaming<\/strong> opened one at \"\"Hollywood Casino<\/strong>. Second was Pittsburgh<\/strong>, where Rivers Casino<\/strong> weighed into the fray. Speculation is that SugarHouse Casino<\/strong> will be third, as it shares ownership with Rivers Casino (how Neil Bluhm<\/strong> got casinos in Pennsylvania’s two biggest markets is a question whose answer has more to do with Democratic Party<\/strong> ‘juice’ than merit as a casino operator). Given Rivers’ proximity to Heinz Field<\/strong>, footballs fans can stop by the casino to lay down a wager on their way to being disappointed by the Pittsburgh Steelers<\/strong> yet again (and I say that as a long-suffering Steeler fan). Meanwhile, in Brazil<\/strong>, the National Congress<\/strong> has a two-year window to legalize sports betting.<\/p>\n

* Kudos to Wynncore<\/strong> for embracing smart-speaker technology, with an installed base of 4,748 units<\/a>. However, Wynn Resorts<\/strong> “doesn\u2019t mention any security precautions it plans to take for the Echo<\/strong>, like automatically wiping the device\u2019s history between guests.” And there’s always the fear<\/a> that Big Brother could be listening in via those 4,748 little microphones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Faced with a 9% drop in operating profit at Atlantic City casinos, pundits are squaring off as to whether this means doom for the laggards. Analyst Tony Marino told The Press of Atlantic City that it \u201cmight be wise to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19964,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,66,14,22,37,91,69,95,33,234,242,74,243,8,9,100,233],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23095"}],"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=23095"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31484,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23095\/revisions\/31484"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}