{"id":6070,"date":"2011-03-22T13:09:20","date_gmt":"2011-03-22T21:09:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=6070"},"modified":"2021-08-27T06:34:30","modified_gmt":"2021-08-27T14:34:30","slug":"packer-packs-it-in-lights-out-at-resorts-a-c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/packer-packs-it-in-lights-out-at-resorts-a-c\/","title":{"rendered":"Packer packs it in; Lights out at Resorts A.C."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"James Packer<\/strong>‘s had enough of the U.S. casino market. While not definitively ruling out a return to the American gaming industry, the minority owner of Cannery Casino Resorts<\/strong> makes it clear that he’s neither the stomach nor the lucre for pursuing further stateside ventures. At least, not in the foreseeable future. Ironically, had Packer waited until casino stocks and bonds were in the toilet, and debt was being sold at huge markdowns, he could have positioned himself to be a major player in this country. Instead, he blew chunks of the fortune father Kerry Packer<\/strong> left him on an incoherent investment strategy. It saw Crown Ltd<\/strong>. purchasing bits and pieces of Harrah’s Entertainment<\/strong>, Station Casinos<\/strong> and Cannery when all were at sky-high value.<\/p>\n

A betting man<\/strong> would have put his money on an inevitable downturn and then waited. (Since Packer wanted to be in both Station and<\/em> Cannery, why didn’t he make a clean sweep of the Las Vegas<\/strong> locals market and purchase some Boyd Gaming<\/strong> stock while he was at it?) A Pennsylvania<\/strong> racino here, a Crown-branded Vegas Strip “failsino” there, a couple of locals joints, plus some hedged bets everywhere else … not one scatter-armed dart-throw found its target.<\/p>\n

But there’s a happy ending<\/strong>. Packer learned from his bruising brush with the unfamiliar American market. (Certain U.S. casino speculators, by contrast, continue to blunder about like Mr. Magoo<\/strong>.) And, sticking to his knitting — i.e., Macao<\/strong> and Australia<\/strong> — has been good for business, with Melco Crown Entertainment<\/strong> continuing to gobble up market share on China<\/strong>‘s doorstep.<\/p>\n

So we needn’t ask, “Why is that man smiling?” If I’d survived a financial near-death experience, I’d be feeling chipper, too.<\/p>\n

Speaking of Station<\/strong>, business is going great guns at Station-managed Gun Lake Casino<\/strong>, up in Michigan<\/strong>. “Capacity” business is not only having a spillover effect in the surrounding area<\/a>; it’s also sparked a 29% hiring increase at the casino itself. Well done.<\/p>\n

\"\"As for bunglers<\/strong>, the ghost of Colony Capital<\/strong> continues to haunt<\/a> Resorts Atlantic City<\/strong> (left<\/em>) in the form of an unpaid power bill. One doesn’t know if new owner Dennis Gomes<\/strong> is actually liable for Colony’s fecklessness but, given the way Colony was blowing off its obligations in re<\/em> Resorts, this fiscal time bomb shouldn’t come as a complete surprise. On a happier note<\/a>, $2.4 billion Revel<\/strong> is hiring — in a big way. Thanks to renewed support from Wall Street<\/strong> (and a little help from Gov. Chris Christie<\/strong> [R] and the New Jersey Legislature<\/strong>), the on-again\/off-again project is definitely “on.” This is great news for unemployed former Atlantic City<\/strong> casino workers, not to mention a firm incentive for existing casinos to keep their employees from jumping ship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

James Packer‘s had enough of the U.S. casino market. While not definitively ruling out a return to the American gaming industry, the minority owner of Cannery Casino Resorts makes it clear that he’s neither the stomach nor the lucre for … 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":[23,103,88,60,73,3,142,140,96,62,93,78,95,111,57,9,20,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6070"}],"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=6070"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30003,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6070\/revisions\/30003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}