{"id":2328,"date":"2010-02-22T16:46:43","date_gmt":"2010-02-23T00:46:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=2328"},"modified":"2010-03-03T13:47:27","modified_gmt":"2010-03-03T21:47:27","slug":"penn-you-stupid-darkness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/penn-you-stupid-darkness\/","title":{"rendered":"Penn: “You stupid darkness!”"},"content":{"rendered":"

In one of my absolute favorite Peanuts<\/em> strips, Charlie Brown<\/strong> finds Linus<\/strong> out in the night, carrying a taper. Asked to explain, Linus replies that it’s better to light a single candle than curse the darkness. Cut to Lucy<\/strong>, elsewhere, yelling, “You stupid darkness!”<\/p>\n

That moment of cartoon eloquence was brought to mind by a hot-off-the-Internet e-mail from J.P. Morgan<\/strong>, whose analysts sat down with Penn National Gaming<\/strong> management. I quote, “management sounds frustrated with the current state of the regional gaming consumer (i.e., the customers are coming, by and large, and visitation is flat with year over year levels, but spending per visit and time on device continues to remain below year ago levels)<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

Forgive me for going all-caps on Penn but WE’RE AT THE BOTTOM OF A FREAKING RECESSION! If you’re “frustrated with the current state of the regional gaming consumer<\/em>,” just think how frustrated John Q. Consumer<\/strong> must be with the current state of his bank account, mortgage, car payments, 401(k), health plan — if he’s lucky enough to have one — salary, etc. More than ever, this seems like a time to be thankful for the business one gets and not, to paraphrase mike_ch<\/strong> (I believe), wring one’s hands over the thought that a dollar not spent on-property is just as real (if not real-er) as the one that was. Or, to put it another way, don’t kvetch that, say, you ‘only’ got $74 for a room night when you wanted $75. One cannot dictate to the marketplace; the market dictates to you<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Penn’s pique is rather odd<\/strong>, considering that company is — as it acknowledged — sitting in the catbird seat in Ohio<\/strong> and Maryland<\/strong>, vis-a-vis<\/em> new casino openings. It’s also got Pennsylvania<\/strong> table games to look forward to, bolstering cash flow. However, “There was no new news on<\/em> [Penn’s] involvement in Las Vegas Strip<\/strong> development or acquisitions.<\/em>” I can’t wait to see what topsy-turvy spin the Penn-fixated Las Vegas Review-Journal<\/em> puts on that morsel.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I don’t know that Penn brass meant to come off as thunderingly insensitive and tone-deaf — but they succeeded nevertheless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In one of my absolute favorite Peanuts strips, Charlie Brown finds Linus out in the night, carrying a taper. Asked to explain, Linus replies that it’s better to light a single candle than curse the darkness. Cut to Lucy, elsewhere, … 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":[28,14,72,71,69,95,9,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2328"}],"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=2328"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2453,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2328\/revisions\/2453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}