{"id":231,"date":"2008-10-21T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-21T21:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/blogs\/dmckee\/index.cfm\/2008\/10\/21\/Its-the-economy-stupid"},"modified":"2021-07-30T08:08:04","modified_gmt":"2021-07-30T16:08:04","slug":"smoke-filled-room","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/smoke-filled-room\/","title":{"rendered":"Smoke-filled room"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maybe all this fussin’ and frettin’ (some of it from yours truly) about casino smoking bans is masking the real issue: Casino expansion in the U.S. has finally hit the wall in the form of one big-ass recession. Five states are contemplating adding casinos this November and in all but one (Maine<\/strong>), it’s expected to pass. If so, it’ll take some brave souls to buck the headwinds that are pushing casino revenues down.<\/p>\n

Gambling halls in Colorado<\/strong> just had another crummy month<\/a>, with Central City<\/strong> down 26%, Black Hawk<\/strong> off 20% and Cripple Creek<\/strong> declining a “mere” 10%. Some of that is undoubtedly smoking-ban-related falloff, but the smoking issue is beclouding one’s ability to see just how much of the decline is a recessionary side effect.<\/p>\n

It’s no easier to get a clear picture in Mississippi<\/strong>. There, you can still smoke ’em if you’ve got ’em, but casino revenues are also on the downward slope. The view here is fogged by Hurricane Gustav<\/strong>, which levied a double-digit whammy<\/a> on the Biloxi-Gulfport<\/strong> market. But Biloxi Mayor A.J. Holloway<\/strong> — who’s been through good times and bad — isn’t going for the easy explanation. He tells the Clarion Ledger<\/em>, “the real story here is the economy. It\u2019s catching up on us. This is something I kind of anticipated. Las Vegas<\/strong> and Atlantic Cit<\/strong>y have been seeing this for months, so it was just a matter of time before it reached us.\u201d As a consequence, state and local officials are starting to talk in terms of diminished expectations.<\/p>\n

As for Louisiana<\/strong> (-23%), it got thwacked twice over, thanks to both Gustav and his bro, Hurricane Ike<\/strong>. Ergo, the entire month’s numbers<\/a> have to be tossed out as an aberration, even the relatively modest 9% decline in Shreveport-Bossier City<\/strong>. (“Relatively modest” only if your yardstick is the -34% declivity suffered by Lake Charles<\/strong>‘ riverboats.)<\/p>\n

Too bad for Pinnacle Entertainment<\/strong>, though: Its L’Auberge du Lac<\/strong> was starting to give Harrah’s New Orleans<\/strong> tough competition for the #1 revenue-earning spot in the Pelican State — only $1 million behind Harrah’s in July.<\/p>\n

Two of the four lowest-earning properties in the state were Tropicana Entertainment<\/strong> riverboats. CEO Scott Butera<\/strong>‘s got his work cut out for him. At least Butera’s finally driven a stake <\/a>through the heart of that 10,000-room grotesquerie<\/a> that predecessor William J. Yung III<\/strong> proposed to build on the site of the Las Vegas Tropicana<\/strong>. Trop Ent needs to maximize what it’s got, not chase after pipe dreams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maybe all this fussin’ and frettin’ (some of it from yours truly) about casino smoking bans is masking the real issue: Casino expansion in the U.S. has finally hit the wall in the form of one big-ass recession. Five states … 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":[27,7,84,35,30,21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231"}],"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=231"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29903,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231\/revisions\/29903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}