{"id":497,"date":"2008-11-11T12:07:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-11T20:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/blogs\/dmckee\/index.cfm\/2008\/11\/11\/Indiana-Its-all-relative"},"modified":"2008-11-11T12:07:00","modified_gmt":"2008-11-11T20:07:00","slug":"indiana-its-all-relative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/indiana-its-all-relative\/","title":{"rendered":"Indiana: It's all relative"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sifting through my massive pile of unwritten Questions of the Day<\/em> and unstudied analyst reports, we come to Indiana's October revenues<\/strong><\/a>. Ultimately, whether any particular metric is good or bad depends on context and perspective.<\/p>\n

To start with the big number, revenue was up 14%<\/strong> from October '07. But that turned into a 1% decline<\/strong> once new racinos Hoosier Park<\/strong> and Indiana Park<\/strong> were sifted out, and goes even lower if you minimize the numbers from the recently augmented Horseshoe Hammond<\/em>. So, whatever "bounce" Indiana is getting from the smoking ban in Illinois<\/strong>, it's being diluted by gambling expansion within the Hoosier State. So it's good for tax coffers, not so good for individual operators.<\/p>\n

Harrah's killed<\/strong> with Horseshoe Hammond<\/em>, which is more like an aircraft carrier with slots than a casino. But it proved a potent "one-ship task force" (a sometimes sacrcastic nickname given the U.S.S. Boise<\/em> after it claimed to have sunk six Japanese ships at the Battle of Cape Esperance<\/a>), more than making up for declines at Horseshoe Southern Indiana<\/strong>. Hammond revenues went up 52% and Harrah's overall take rose 20%.<\/p>\n

Despite the panicky attitudes<\/strong> manifested of late at Ameristar Casinos<\/strong>, its East Chicago property was off but 3.5%, despite the Horseshoe Hammond<\/em> factor, which ate far worse into Don Barden<\/strong>'s Gary, Ind., flotilla.<\/p>\n

What to make of Blue Chip<\/em>?<\/strong> To see the glass as half-full, the double-digit revenue declines that began in August '07 are slowly starting to narrow. Business has been off as much as $10 million year\/year, and October's 18% decline comes atop a 22% declivity the year before. But it looks like Blue Chip<\/em> is going to bottom out at 60%-65% of its former market share. And it was Indiana's seventh-winningest casino in October, keeping Boyd Gaming<\/strong> out of the bottom tier.<\/p>\n

Down south<\/strong>, only Casino Aztar<\/em> showed revenue growth (5%), which continues to validate current management's aggressive mindset — but business still hasn't returned to pre-Columbia Sussex<\/strong> levels. As for French Lick<\/strong>, so long hyped as a casino destination, so greatly anticipated, it has proven Indiana's most disappointing market. It's the least-lucrative in the state and continues to give indications of having peaked.<\/p>\n

Slots are tight at Belterra<\/strong>. How else to explain a 10% win increase on -14% handle? The last time somebody managed a feat like that He fed a large crowd with but a few loaves and fishes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sifting through my massive pile of unwritten Questions of the Day and unstudied analyst reports, we come to Indiana's October revenues. Ultimately, whether any particular metric is good or bad depends on context and perspective. To start with the big … 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":[40,60,15,83,14,7,58,68,30],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497"}],"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=497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}