{"id":28068,"date":"2020-09-30T10:09:21","date_gmt":"2020-09-30T18:09:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=28068"},"modified":"2020-10-05T10:54:47","modified_gmt":"2020-10-05T18:54:47","slug":"barstool-buy-buoys-penn-natl-mgms-ad-blitzkrieg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/barstool-buy-buoys-penn-natl-mgms-ad-blitzkrieg\/","title":{"rendered":"Barstool buy buoys Penn Nat’l; MGM’s ad blitzkrieg"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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JP Morgan<\/strong> analysts upped their near- and long-term cash flow estimates for Penn National Gaming<\/strong>, based on regional trends and sports betting. “While we recognize PENN\u2019s impressive share price outperformance, and many sell-side firms have thrown in the towel with downgrades, we still see value and catalysts ahead,” wrote Joseph Greff<\/strong>. He acknowledged that there is “plenty of investor skepticism related to PENN\u2019s ability to compete with DraftKings<\/strong>, Fanduel<\/strong>, CZR, MGM\/GVC, et al., given PENN\u2019s relative balance sheet size … but we believe this risk, to the extent it is meaningful, to compete is now diminished given ~$950m raised from its recent equity raise.” The Pennsylvania<\/strong> kickoff of Barstool Sports’ betting application is described as “encouraging both from a volume and marketing spend perspective”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"How successful is Barstool? In its first four days of going live in the Keystone State, it “recorded 30,000 app downloads in Pennsylvania<\/strong> and registered 24,000 customers, with 12,000 of these customers first-time depositors … depositing an average $243.” Color us impressed. That translated into $11 million handle, 22% of which was directly driven by Barstool picks. “Across the U.S., the app recorded 180,000 downloads, 95% of which were new to PENN\u2019s ecosystem. The app was the number one most downloaded sports betting and sports app in the country, and, importantly, these results came with zero external marketing spend.” Next up at Barstool: Michigan<\/strong> and Illinois<\/strong>. And it’s coming to market at a propitious time, as sports betting handle reaches record levels, and a plethora of collegiate and major-league sports are on the tote board. Besides, the advent of cooler weather will incentive Internet gambling, Greff believes, and he projects Penn to capture 15% of domestic market share.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Basically, Greff sees the forward march of sports betting as a reprise of the riverboat-gambling armada of thirty years ago. State budgets are reeling from the Great Shutdown, and both sports betting and Internet gambling represent a tax lifeline. Penn “will be one of the winners.” In addition to his fondness for Penn, Station Casinos<\/strong> and Boyd Gaming<\/strong>, Greff tips Churchill Downs<\/strong> and Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> as prime movers. As for Penn’s terrestrial casinos, “The regional gaming recovery seen during May\/June continued into the 3Q, with revenues coming in better than feared; we had previously assumed a slower ramp once pent-up\u00a0demand normalized and little\/no opex creep from post-COVID efficiency gains.” In other words, cabin-fever gamblers are continuing to play and, thanks to corporate cutbacks, it’s not costing Penn more money to run its far-flung casino empire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More good news from the front lines of the fight against Covid-19<\/strong>: Mask compliance at Las Vegas bars and restaurants is on the rise<\/a>. 94% of restaurants surveyed were in compliance, as were (not quite so good) 86% of bars. None of the non-compliant businesses receiving citations, which may have been a mistake, rewarding bad behavior. Still, one can enter a Clark County<\/strong> eating establishment with a greater degree of confidence. We’re not out of the woods yet. The county reported 1,853 new Coronavirus<\/strong> cases last week. Wear that mask, pardner!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scientific Games<\/strong> had some good news of its own. Hard Rock International<\/strong> renewed its sports-betting partnership with SGMS on a long-term basis. Scientific operates OpenSports<\/em> and OpenGaming<\/em> for Hard Rock, which it will be rolling out in Iowa<\/strong> and New Jersey<\/strong>. Although it’s just starting with two states, Hard Rock will deploy the Scientific applications across all its digital gaming platforms. This looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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MGM: “Broadcast *this*!”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

MGM Resorts International<\/strong> is going head-to-head against regional casinos. One target: Phoenix<\/strong>. An S&G<\/em> source reports that MGM is carpet-bombing the radio airwaves with ads, each plugging a different Las Vegas Strip<\/strong> resort (MGM Grand<\/strong>, Bellagio<\/strong>, Aria<\/strong>) but all with the same basic message, ‘Please come back.’ If they’re doing it in Phoenix (a hotbed of tribal gaming), dollars to donuts it’s happening in San Diego<\/strong>, Los Angeles<\/strong> and other drive-in markets, at minimum. Strip casinos have historically ignored or tried to co-exist with tribal and regional properties, so MGM’s escalation makes us sit up and take note.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’re not saying anything about last night’s debate but Crossroads Addiction Services<\/strong> CEO Dave Marlon<\/strong> (a sometime S&G<\/em> contributor) is. “It shouldn\u2019t be lost amidst last night\u2019s chaos that currently about 20 million Americans are battling addiction, while America is mired in an opiate and overdose crisis the likes of which we\u2019ve never seen, compounded by the stress of the pandemic. As we call it, it\u2019s \u2018The Epidemic within the Pandemic.\u2019 [Joe<\/strong>] Biden<\/strong> acknowledging his sons addiction and embracing recovery is a meaningful sign to any American struggling through addiction\u2013that things can get better, and that help is on the way. It\u2019s also important to remember President Trump<\/strong> has said similar things about his brother Fred<\/strong>\u2019s fight with alcoholism many years ago.” We’d call that fair and balanced … and salubrious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jottings<\/strong>: Seven casino states all have another thing in common\u2014they all have the most-mispronounced names in the country. Top of the list<\/a>: Nevada<\/strong>. The common (and recommended) usage is Nev-AAA-da. I’ll never forget how John Kerry<\/strong> got razzed in 2004 for calling it “Nev-AH-da” at a UNLV<\/strong> rally. (I was covering it. I cringed.) … Did you know about the Donald Trump<\/strong>\/Jared Kushner<\/strong> connection to the Downtown Grand<\/strong>? (We didn’t.) They’re partners with owner CIM Group<\/strong> in sundry ventures<\/a> drawing upon CIM’s $20 billion in funds, including Trump SoHo<\/strong>. CIM’s philosophy is described as “to get good returns for investors by investing in undervalued urban real estate.” (Something of which we could use more.) That’s certainly true at the Downtown Grand, somewhat so in CIM’s coastal markets, even though CIM has been dogged by a variety of personal scandals. However, compared to the Trump Organization<\/strong>, CIM is sound as a pound, so much so that it paid $345 million for a New York City<\/strong> parking lot. That’s either foolhardiness or confidence, probably the latter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JP Morgan analysts upped their near- and long-term cash flow estimates for Penn National Gaming, based on regional trends and sports betting. “While we recognize PENN\u2019s impressive share price outperformance, and many sell-side firms have thrown in the towel with … 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":[109,60,244,176,18,42,226,277,278,165,283,58,37,86,53,245,259,207,248,69,95,90,74,243,57,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28068"}],"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=28068"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28069,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28068\/revisions\/28069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}