{"id":28692,"date":"2020-10-27T13:06:18","date_gmt":"2020-10-27T21:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=28692"},"modified":"2020-11-04T11:06:23","modified_gmt":"2020-11-04T19:06:23","slug":"vegas-too-much-too-soon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/vegas-too-much-too-soon\/","title":{"rendered":"Vegas: Too much, too soon?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Did Las Vegas<\/strong> reopen too swiftly and too soon? Has it, in fact\u2014as we asked and Las Vegas Sands <\/strong>President Rob Goldstein<\/strong> heavily implies<\/a>\u2014jumped the shark? It has for 1,200 Las Vegas Strip<\/strong> workers. In addition to 828 already-reported sackings at the Tropicana Las Vegas<\/strong>, another 180 at Park MGM Theater<\/strong> and 164 at MGM Grand Garden<\/strong> have been pink-slipped<\/a>. Bottom line: Big events aren’t coming back anytime soon. Put those Lady Gaga<\/strong> tickets back in the drawer. If you think we’re pessimistic, try Trop GM Mike Thoma<\/strong> for a dose of doom and gloom. “Significant drags on our business will likely continue for the foreseeable future,” he wrote. “We could not have anticipated when our properties would be allowed to reopen and how restrictive the new operating conditions would be, and the negative impact this would have on business volumes.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’re not sure we buy that. Manager Penn National Gaming<\/strong>, by waiting until September to reopen the Trop, should have had a good picture of the competitive landscape. And if didn’t now what conditions would be and how they’d impact business, Penn just wasn’t paying attention. 236 M Resort<\/strong> employees will get a Penn Christmas present<\/a> in the form of termination on Dec. 21 or within the following fortnight. Help us through the holiday season and then out the door with you. About the only good news is that 17 Trop dealers marked for termination got an extension, presumably because business improved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Still, Penn’s apologia pro vita sua<\/em> is rife with cluelessness: “We simply could not foresee that the initial closures of our properties that were issued by one or two states for a limited period of time ultimately spread throughout all the states in which we operate and eventually be extended, interrupting almost all business and travel temporarily.” You and the federal government. All these bodies on the floor are great for Wall Street<\/strong>, which saw Penn stock climb. (Perhaps, given the stock market’s obliviousness to the consequences of Covid-19<\/strong>, we should call this the Great Disconnect.) Penn’s not alone in sacrificing its workforce on the altar of Mammon. Full House Resorts<\/strong> took Paycheck Protection Program<\/strong> money, then cut jobs anyway. That’s what we call hypocrisy. At least Penn is consistently ruthless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"Getting back to Goldstein for a moment, he compared present-day Vegas with a regional drive-in market. That’d be a burn except<\/em> for the fact that the regional markets are outperforming Sin City these days, no two ways about it. Las Vegas is an anomaly in gaming in that it is uniquely ill-positioned to withstand any downturn in the economy. It simply is not a sufficiently diverse destination after all. Goldstein doesn’t see convention business returning until next year (by which time it could be someone else’s problem), adding, “I’ve never felt more gloomy than I do today about what’s happening in Las Vegas.” Sheldon Adelson<\/strong> may own a lot of politicians’ souls but he can’t buy off Covid-19. It’s in the economic driver’s seat and no president, no Congress and no amount of government intervention will change that, at least not until there’s a reliable vaccine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the positive side, room rates are shallowing for the Nov. 15-21 period, down 34% overall. The average room price is $98 and weekday rates are down 40% but weekends are just off by 8%. Las Vegas Sands<\/strong> is all over the place, down 50% midweek but up by an eye-popping 56% on weekends, even with Palazzo<\/strong> diluting the inventory. MGM Resorts International<\/strong> is off 3% on weekends and by 38% weekdays, Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> is getting hammered on the weekends, down 25%, and -34% midweek, while Wynncore<\/strong> is just 2% off last year’s weekend pace while plunging 48% on weekdays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\" Jottings<\/em><\/strong>: The threesome of Caesars Entertainment<\/strong>, William Hill<\/strong> and the Indianapolis Colts<\/strong> have inked a marketing partnership whereby Caesars and Hill become the Colts’ official sports betting partner of the team. Specifics were few beyond a statement that the new “Pick 6 Predictor generates a series of questions, that fans predict the outcome of, before the upcoming games. Correct picks are rewarded with weekly prizes, and all participants are entered into a chance to win a trip to Las Vegas<\/strong> to stay” at a CZR-owned hotel. Oh, and expect to see a lot of Caesars’ jumbled new sports-betting logo … In a battle of the billionaires, Jeff Bezos<\/strong> is taking a shot at Donald Trump<\/strong>. He’s streaming Borat Subsequent Moviefilm<\/em> free to Amazon Prime<\/strong> members. The picture would be funny if it weren’t so disturbing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Did Las Vegas reopen too swiftly and too soon? Has it, in fact\u2014as we asked and Las Vegas Sands President Rob Goldstein heavily implies\u2014jumped the shark? It has for 1,200 Las Vegas Strip workers. In addition to 828 already-reported sackings … 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":[244,42,14,198,283,241,63,53,245,10,69,12,243,252,233],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28692"}],"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=28692"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28695,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28692\/revisions\/28695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}