{"id":27374,"date":"2020-06-22T10:18:23","date_gmt":"2020-06-22T18:18:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=27374"},"modified":"2020-10-16T06:56:29","modified_gmt":"2020-10-16T14:56:29","slug":"penn-boyd-bushwhack-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/penn-boyd-bushwhack-jobs\/","title":{"rendered":"Penn, Boyd bushwhack jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There’s still no timeline for Tropicana Las Vegas<\/strong> to reopen, certainly not by mid-July. That news comes as Penn National Gaming<\/strong> slashed 2,575 jobs over eight states. Evidently Penn doesn’t expect the current surge in business to last, as most of the job cuts will come in August, with more in September. Hollywood St. Louis<\/strong>, one of the company’s most lucrative casinos, is targeted for 455 sackings, while nearby River City<\/strong> eliminated 329 jobs. Hollywood Columbus<\/strong> and Hollywood Dayton<\/strong> will lose 300 positions. M Resort<\/strong> will get hit with 328 firings, Argosy Riverside<\/strong> in Kansas City<\/strong> with 289 and Kansas Speedway<\/strong> casino with 218.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the corporate level, 233 positions will be eliminated. As bad as all that looks, it’s nothing compared to the austerity program underway at Boyd Gaming<\/strong>, which has warned of 60% workforce reductions at some of its casinos. (As many as 1,800 jobs at The Orleans<\/strong> could be impacted.) As for Penn, it said the layoffs “are the unfortunate result of COVID-19<\/strong> related business circumstances that were sudden, dramatic, and beyond our control,” in a letter to the Nevada Department of Employment, Training & Rehabilitation<\/strong>. It continued, “These significant drags on our business will likely continue for the foreseeable future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

These equivocal signals about the comeback of gambling arrive at the same time as similar ones from Caesars Entertainment<\/strong>. The Roman Empire is taking bookings at The Linq<\/strong>, Bally’s Las Vegas<\/strong>, The Rio<\/strong>, Paris-Las Vegas<\/strong>, Planet Hollywood<\/strong> and The Cromwell<\/strong>\u2014but retaining the option to move you to a different property if there’s not enough demand to go around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It looks like, instead of reinvesting in their properties, hotel owners are\u2014like vultures feasting on carrion<\/a>\u2014going to put their money into mergers and acquisitions. \u201cIf there\u2019s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to acquire something like, say a company with the cachet of Four Seasons<\/strong>, and the conditions are right, big caps like Blackstone<\/strong> might buy,\u201d said R.W. Baird<\/strong> senior analyst Michael Bellisario<\/strong>. Mid-sized companies in fly-in leisure destinations and with heavy convention exposure are deemed especially vulnerable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘The appetite for M&A is huge. They\u2019re going to have to put strategies in place to protect themselves from becoming targets,\u201d stated Canyon Equity<\/strong> CEO Homi Vazifdar<\/strong>. ‘Hot niche concepts’\u2014does gaming have any?\u2014are also considered to be prime targets. Concluded Kempinski Hotels<\/strong> CEO Martin Smura<\/strong>, Smaller operators who don\u2019t have cash to buy each other might start looking at how to join forces.\u201d Imagine Colony Capital<\/strong> let loose in such an environment. Scary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some good news for the Nevada<\/strong> economy: Continued claims for unemployment are declining as the state continues to reopen. Initial claims slumped slightly, to 10,620 while continued claims fell 22,173 (or 6.5%). To put these numbers in perspective, there have been 528,545 initial claims this year, 506,893 of which have come in the last fourteen weeks. Continued claims constitute 313,009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jottings<\/em><\/strong>: BetMGM<\/strong> has landed the contract to be sports-betting provider to Spirit Mountain Casino<\/strong> in Oregon<\/strong> … Scientific Games<\/strong> offshoot SciPlay<\/strong> has acquired “casual game” developer Come2Play<\/strong>. The Israel<\/strong>\/Ukraine<\/strong>-based company specializes in offerings like backgammon and solitaire … Jing<\/strong> restaurant in Las Vegas<\/strong> is closed today for “wellness.” Three employees in the crowded eatery tested positive for Coronavirus<\/strong> and the general manager will be getting a test, too … After a three-month-plus shutdown, Ute Mountain Casino<\/strong> in Colorado<\/strong> is reopening its RV park on June 22, followed by the rest of the hotel-casino on June 26. Guests will be subjected to temperature checks and are “expected” to wear masks … Jilin Province<\/strong>, in China<\/strong>, is incentivizing its citizens to rat out neighbors suspected of illegal gambling. $7,000 is your reward if you snitch successfully … After testing negative in order to go back to work, an employee at Guy Fieri<\/strong>‘s Linq restaurant is positive for Covid-19. The eatery is temporarily closed after a very brief reopening … Three workers at Northside Caf\u00e9 & Chinese Kitchen<\/strong> at the Sahara<\/strong> tested positive for Coronavirus. The restaurant has closed … Hotels in the Miami Beach<\/strong> area are said to be booked solid. Expect a Covid-19 resurgence at South Florida<\/strong> casinos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s still no timeline for Tropicana Las Vegas to reopen, certainly not by mid-July. That news comes as Penn National Gaming slashed 2,575 jobs over eight states. Evidently Penn doesn’t expect the current surge in business to last, as most … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26639,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60,244,275,27,18,14,36,283,45,189,63,245,39,207,71,211,69,54,160,243,9,20,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27374"}],"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=27374"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28203,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27374\/revisions\/28203"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}