{"id":4792,"date":"2010-10-08T12:36:32","date_gmt":"2010-10-08T20:36:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=4792"},"modified":"2019-04-09T09:34:45","modified_gmt":"2019-04-09T17:34:45","slug":"the-whales-of-august","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/the-whales-of-august\/","title":{"rendered":"The whales of August"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Nevada<\/strong> had another big casino bounce — $944.5 million, its largest since February’s $947 million. However, some of the positive auguries are real and some are misleading. To get the big one out of the way, Strip slot revenues were up 13% — but on lower coin-in, which means that somebody’s been tightening the slot hold again. Back out approximately $28 million in slot win that’s a holdover from the final weekend in July (Nevada uses some arcane slot-accounting rules) and the increase dwindles to a fraction of a percent. With the exception of last February, slot handle has down every since month<\/em> since the end of 2007.<\/p>\n

Also, one can scarcely overstate the degree to which VIP play has been propping up the Strip this year (five months of double-digit growth, plus one of triple<\/em>-digit growth in wagering). The whales bet leviathan-like amounts of money in August (+87%) and casinos played lucky, winning 47% more, year over year. The Strip has been very lucky in other table games, averaging a 13% higher win even though players are wagering only 7% more money. Table game winnings for Strip casinos were up 29% in August, continuing a volatile but overwhelmingly positive year. This was accomplished, mind you, in an August that was “unfavorable,” i.e., had one less weekend day than last year. Following an 8% table revenue jump in July, this “speaks well to the stabilizing domestic gaming patron theme,” according to Wells Farg<\/strong>o analyst Carlo Santarelli<\/strong>.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

So, August basically continued the 2010 narrative of lively table play and flat slots. Locals and outstate revenues were — in what may be the more hopeful indicator — up 11.5% and 3.5%, respectively. Except for Reno<\/strong> (-2%) and Laughlin<\/strong> (-5%), every non-Strip jurisdiction did better than average. The biggest percentage gainers were North Las Vegas<\/strong> (14%), the Boulder Strip<\/strong> (3%), the Carson City<\/strong> area (7%) and even hard-buffeted Lake Tahoe<\/strong> (8%). All this, of course, must be taken with the caveat that it includes some — possibly substantial — leftover slot revenue from July. Santarelli writes that he “wouldn’t read too much into [the numbers] and we continue to believe the road to recovery in the locals market is long.”<\/p>\n

Breach of contract\u00a0<\/strong>Few casinos are required by law to maintain X number of employees. Harrah’s New Orleans<\/strong> is such a rare creature. It’s been out of compliance for two months this summer. Recently, that’s been remedied by a prolonged hiring fair — and partly through some clever reshuffling<\/a> of the full-time vs. part-time mix of the workforce. However, any adverse scrutiny of Harrah’s should be tempered by knowledge that the company hasn’t used the reducing of some employees to part-timers as an excuse to yank benefits. Many other companies would not be so scrupulous.<\/p>\n

Hard up for casino operators<\/strong>, increased flexibility is being offered by the State of Kansas<\/strong>. Both Global Gaming<\/strong> and perceived also-ran Peninsula Gaming<\/strong> were allowed to sweeten their revenue projections by the Kansas Lottery Commission<\/strong>, for whom they’ll be working. Peninsula also improved its chances by being permitted to add a second, less-controversial prospective location in Mulvane<\/strong>. It’s the spot vacated by Harrah’s Entertainment<\/strong> when it skittered out of Kansas (again) in September, possibly frightened away by the prospect of a Class II tribal casino nearby. Don’t expect a final choice of operator before mid-December.<\/p>\n

Death Ray? What Death Ray?<\/strong> How is Vdara<\/strong> management handling its big PR problem? By 86’ing people who ask about it<\/a>, that’s how. And there I was thinking Luxor<\/strong> was the MGM Resorts International<\/strong> property located on the banks of deNile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nevada had another big casino bounce — $944.5 million, its largest since February’s $947 million. However, some of the positive auguries are real and some are misleading. To get the big one out of the way, Strip slot revenues were … 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":[88,28,14,7,45,76,49,84,78,25,79,9,19,143,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4792"}],"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=4792"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23878,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4792\/revisions\/23878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}