{"id":5205,"date":"2010-12-01T12:26:13","date_gmt":"2010-12-01T20:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=5205"},"modified":"2021-07-05T04:29:58","modified_gmt":"2021-07-05T12:29:58","slug":"isles-comeback-continues-whats-in-a-mystic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/isles-comeback-continues-whats-in-a-mystic\/","title":{"rendered":"Isle’s comeback continues; What’s in a Mystic?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Congratulations to Isle of Capri Casinos<\/strong>, winner of Missouri<\/strong>‘s 13th and final casino license. This morning, the Missouri Gaming Commission<\/strong> voted in favor<\/a> of Isle’s $125 million Cape Girardeau<\/strong> project. Although all rival projects were budgeted higher, favorite-son Isle’s standing as a “good corporate citizen” and the robust support of local voters<\/a> put it over the top. Not even the last-minute enlistment<\/a> of Carl Icahn<\/strong>‘s Tropicana Entertainment<\/strong> was enough to rescue an effort to put a new casino at St. Louis<\/strong>‘ Chain of Rocks Bridge<\/strong>, a project riskily premised on sucking vast amounts of revenue out of Penn National Gaming<\/strong>‘s Alton Belle<\/em> riverboat. Ironically, a previous incarnation of Tropicana Entertainment, then owned by Columbia Sussex<\/strong>, had been run out of Missouri. It was never able to own or operate the former Casino Aztar<\/em>, now owned by … Isle of Capri.<\/p>\n

The MGC’s decision is a win-win-win for Isle, Ameristar Casinos<\/strong> and Pinnacle Entertainment<\/strong>, as casino analyst Carlo Santarelli<\/strong> points out in an investor note. He projects annual cash flow of $27 million once the casino opens, which would constitute a splendid 22% ROI. By opting for Cape Girardeau, the commission achieves the greatest possible diffusion of competition, given the alternatives before it. The only obvious downside is that regulators passed an opportunity to bring a new company into the state. However, sitting on the license and hoping that Wynn Resorts<\/strong> wants to build a Show-Me State casino clearly isn’t a realistic option, especially with St. Louis-based Isle sitting on one’s doorstep. Isle got in trouble but cannibalizing its revenues through excessive Midwest expansion. In a year or so we’ll see if its newest project grows revenue or just rearranges existing dollars.<\/p>\n

(Big thanks to the two S&G<\/em> readers who forwarded links on this breaking story.)<\/p>\n

\"\"In a Nov. 30 e-mail blast<\/strong> (in both senses of the term), the “Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader” blog weighed the pros and cons of a Thanksgiving stay at CityCenter<\/strong>. In light of $120\/night rates for luxury rooms, he deemed a weekend on the Strip cheaper than staying home. (Maybe for him; the rest of us … not so much.) MHTF’s sources told him 80% occupancy rates at CityCenter were achieved by withdrawing a fifth of the metaresort’s rooms from circulation. You might want to take such information cum grano salis<\/em>, since he also reports that CityCenter contains two casinos, which was never part of the plan.<\/p>\n

Like many other visitors, he finds much of Crystals<\/strong> “elegantly boarded up” and its high-end retailers “bereft of a single customer,” while service at Aria<\/strong> was “glacially slow.” Blaming this on the Culinary Union<\/strong>, though, strains credulity when you consider that every other Strip resort except Venelazzo<\/strong> is union-manned, so why should Aria be dramatically worse in that respect? One quibbles with the details of MHFT’s chronicle but his concluding verdict is difficult to dispute: “Excess is in abundant over supply here, and [MGM Resorts International<\/strong> and Dubai World<\/strong>] clearly thought the good times would go on forever<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

As did many others<\/a>. (Thanks to reader Greg Askins<\/strong> for forwarding the blast.)<\/p>\n

As gaming lawsuits go<\/strong>, this one may take the cake<\/a> for preposterousness. Speaking as a former resident of Minnesota<\/strong>, I’ve never been in danger of confusing its Mystic Lake<\/strong> megaresort <\/a>with the puny Mystic Lodge Casino<\/strong> in Henderson<\/strong>. Hell, you’d be a little hard-pressed to even find the latter and I pity the fool who tries to book a stay there (it doesn’t have hotel rooms) when imagining he’s going to Mystic Lake instead. The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community<\/strong> must he strapped for cash if it’s rattling its legal saber at a pissant slot house — so small that LVA<\/em> doesn’t even list it — in the Vegas ‘burbs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Congratulations to Isle of Capri Casinos, winner of Missouri‘s 13th and final casino license. This morning, the Missouri Gaming Commission voted in favor of Isle’s $125 million Cape Girardeau project. Although all rival projects were budgeted higher, favorite-son Isle’s standing … 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":[40,88,56,28,134,14,85,11,43,39,69,30,25,12,32,9,19,20,21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5205"}],"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=5205"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29801,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5205\/revisions\/29801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}