{"id":6664,"date":"2011-05-16T11:03:59","date_gmt":"2011-05-16T19:03:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=6664"},"modified":"2023-12-07T06:48:18","modified_gmt":"2023-12-07T14:48:18","slug":"a-tale-of-three-casinos-explosive-night-at-monte-carlo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/a-tale-of-three-casinos-explosive-night-at-monte-carlo\/","title":{"rendered":"A tale of three casinos; Explosive night at Monte Carlo"},"content":{"rendered":"

But first …<\/strong> put this<\/a> in the ‘Told Ya So’ File. The flim-flam man can now resume his fiduciary duties to Trump Entertainment Resorts<\/strong> and doing what he does best: Making delusional claims about his net worth.<\/p>\n

\"\"Three Vegas casinos<\/strong> reported quarterly results at the tail end of last week and the results might be described as the good, the bad and the troubling.<\/p>\n

The good<\/strong>: While a $9 million<\/a> loss might not seem like good news for the Tropicana Las Vegas<\/strong>, all the monetary trends are good. The $17 net revenue represents a 28% increase from early last year. While still a work in progress, the Trop’s much-ballyhooed ‘South Beach’ retheming — plus the fact that the place just looks cleaner — is clearly paying dividends, validating Onex Corp<\/strong>.’s purchase and CEO Alex Yemenidjian<\/strong>‘s vision for a rejuvenated Trop<\/a>. Room and F&B revs were up 51% apiece, reflective of new product in both departments.<\/p>\n

A 12% boost in casino income might not seem so impressive by comparison. But consider: Casino revenue ($8 million) led all departments and represented 41% of the overall picture. Remember that figure.<\/p>\n


\nThe bad<\/strong>: New management is still finding its feet at the Riviera<\/strong> (and today’s demise<\/a> of the Sahara<\/strong> should add a few room nights to the ledger). So it deserves a mulligan or two. Revenue is flat from early 2010, so that could be worse, and onerous interest payments that long handcuffed Riviera Holdings<\/strong> have been shed. But, were it not for that debt-servicing relief, losses would have increased 1Q11 to $6.1 million from last year’s $4.5 million. So turnaround is still a ways off.<\/p>\n

Casino winnings were up 3% and a boost in ADRs made up for lower occupancy (81%), to the point where room revenues outpaced casino ones to the tune of 300 grand. Not a disastrous metric but a worrisome one. In Colorado<\/strong>, like so many operators, Riviera is discovering that the Great Recession<\/strong> > looser rules, with revenue 3% off.<\/p>\n

\"\"The troubling<\/strong>: OK, so that Fate-tempting Lauryn Hill<\/strong> gig came off without a hitch. And while both the revenue and the first-quarter loss ($57 million) at Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas<\/strong> dwarf those of the Trop and Riv combined, that’s the issue. A strong nightlife component and restaurant product put F&B ($58 million) out in front of all other departments by a country mile. Rooms (86% full) generated $34 million and the casino contributed $31 million.<\/p>\n

That’s right, 25% of the total. Management didn’t make any excuses about getting hit hard by high rollers and, even if they had, it’d still be a spectacular underperformance in Las Vegas<\/strong>‘ bread-and-butter revenue stream<\/a>. There was a (pre-Morgans Hotel Group<\/strong>) time when the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino<\/strong> was getting only 1\/3 of its cash flow from the gaming floor — and that was considered an outlier.<\/p>\n

If the Cosmo’s<\/strong> splashy casino floor doesn’t start pulling its weight, Steve Wynn<\/strong>‘s dire predictions about Deutsche Bank<\/strong>‘s $4 billion investment being a total writeoff may start coming true. Bellagio did $251 million in 1Q11 and even with a less attention-getting array of amenities Aria still pulled in $225 million, compared to Cosmo’s underwhelming $105 million. No EBITDA figure was busted out but, at the present revenues, ROI prospects look bleak.<\/p>\n

Not again!<\/strong><\/p>\n

As the Sahara limps toward an undignified death, darned if the Monte Carlo<\/strong> didn’t go and steal what little thunder remained. An electrical explosion<\/a> near the ill-starred casino temporarily closed I-15<\/strong>, and darkened the exteriors of Vdara<\/strong> and Aria. (No need for the last person leaving Vdara to turn out the lights.) Scary!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

But first … put this in the ‘Told Ya So’ File. The flim-flam man can now resume his fiduciary duties to Trump Entertainment Resorts and doing what he does best: Making delusional claims about his net worth. Three Vegas casinos … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[48,23,56,66,18,42,14,4,149,53,11,125,102,55,54,32,9,19,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6664"}],"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=6664"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32960,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6664\/revisions\/32960"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}