{"id":24345,"date":"2019-06-17T08:34:24","date_gmt":"2019-06-17T16:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=24345"},"modified":"2019-06-17T09:24:43","modified_gmt":"2019-06-17T17:24:43","slug":"eldorados-clearance-sale-atlantic-city-takes-the-lead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/eldorados-clearance-sale-atlantic-city-takes-the-lead\/","title":{"rendered":"Eldorado’s clearance sale; Atlantic City takes the lead"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eldorado Resorts<\/strong> may be getting closer to a Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> acquisition (accounts differ) but it’s already clearing the decks for a big expenditure. It just offloaded three casinos to\u2014irony alert\u2014Caesars’ Vici Properties<\/strong> for $385 million. The trio is Mountaineer Casino<\/strong> in West Virginia<\/strong>, which \"\"never seems to stop changing hands, Isle of Capri Cape Girardeau<\/strong> and Lady Luck Caruthersville<\/strong> … in other words, the low-hanging fruit of the Eldorado orchard. This lessens competition with Harrah’s Metropolis<\/strong> and reduces Eldorado’s potential exposure in the Show-Me State, going from a possible market share of 33% to 28%, which might be enough to make the Federal Trade Commission<\/strong> happy. Operation of the properties goes over to Century Casinos<\/strong> (no, I’ve never heard of them before), which paid $107 million for that prerogative.<\/p>\n

The cash-flow multiple of the sale was an industry-average 7.5X, so Eldorado obviously wasn’t doing a deal out of desperation. JP Morgan<\/strong> analyst Joseph Greff<\/strong> tips several more Eldorado properties as potential divestitures (primarily for low cash flow), namely Montbleu<\/strong> on Lake Tahoe<\/strong>, Tropicana Laughlin<\/strong>, Isle of Capri Lula<\/strong> in Mississippi<\/strong>, Lady Luck Vicksburg<\/strong>, Tropicana Greenville<\/strong> and\/or Belle of Baton Rouge<\/strong>. That latter is so snake-bitten by the smoking ban that Eldorado will be lucky to find takers for it.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, Eldorado is only just now being approved as the new owner of Tropicana Atlantic City<\/strong>. The New Jersey Casino Control Commission<\/strong> obviously doesn’t do anything in a hurry. Of course, the \"\"impending Caesars deal would raise the question of “undue economic concentration<\/a>,” since the merged companies would control 41% of market share, which demands a strong appetite for risk in the volatile Boardwalk market (especially at Caesars Atlantic City<\/strong>). While bottom-feeding Bally’s<\/strong> practically has a “for sale” sign on it, would unloading it be sufficient to lower Eldorado’s oceanside risk profile?<\/p>\n

Speaking of Atlantic City (and Bally’s), New Jersey<\/strong> became the first state in the nation to mandate “panic buttons”<\/a> for hotel workers. The impetus behind the law was an incident last year at Bally’s in which an employee was pushed by a guest into closet, then sexually assaulted. “Sometimes it’s a long floor of rooms and you may be the only one working there,” said Tropicana Atlantic City<\/strong> housekeeper Dasha Parikh<\/strong>, while Unite-Here Local 54<\/strong>‘s Ben Albert<\/strong> said “The housekeepers were enraged after that” assault at Bally’s. As far as Big Gaming states are concerned, only Illinois<\/strong> and Florida<\/strong> are looking into such laws at the moment. For shame. This should be a much wider movement. (Some gaming companies in Nevada<\/strong> have had to take the lead.)<\/p>\n

* Penn National Gaming<\/strong> won the footrace to have the first satellite casino approved in Pennsylvania<\/strong>. Its Hollywood Casino Morgantown<\/strong> will have 750 slots and 35 tables.<\/p>\n

* Could the good, old sports book be on the way out even before it has a chance to spread across this great land of ours? CEOs of online gaming providers are laying out a scenario whereby 90% of all sports bets are made with mobile devices in 10 years, maybe even sooner. One contrarian was David Cordish<\/strong>, who warned, “It costs a lot to market to that customer, and you’re not the only one. What we should be doing is building real facilities that attract the guest. It’s a fun event.”<\/p>\n

* June is waning fast but if you rack up $25 in points, the casino will reward you with a $50 Chevron<\/strong> or Walmart<\/strong> gift certificate. This is a break with South Point<\/strong> tradition, which rewarded play with more (free) play but we applaud the initiative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eldorado Resorts may be getting closer to a Caesars Entertainment acquisition (accounts differ) but it’s already clearing the decks for a big expenditure. It just offloaded three casinos to\u2014irony alert\u2014Caesars’ Vici Properties for $385 million. The trio is Mountaineer Casino … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5206,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,244,70,199,37,76,49,84,53,122,35,248,95,99,25,243,196,38,139],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24345"}],"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=24345"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24351,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24345\/revisions\/24351"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}