{"id":6872,"date":"2011-06-08T12:55:35","date_gmt":"2011-06-08T20:55:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=6872"},"modified":"2011-06-08T12:57:36","modified_gmt":"2011-06-08T20:57:36","slug":"illinois-how-much-worse-can-it-get","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/illinois-how-much-worse-can-it-get\/","title":{"rendered":"Illinois: How much worse can it get?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"OK, the 9% dropoff in Illinois<\/strong> gambling dollars last month looks worse than it is because it mainly reflects the flood-enforced closure of Harrah’s Metropolis<\/em> (left<\/em>, -77%). All other casinos were down an aggregate 3%, and it didn’t much matter whether one was at the northeastern or southwestern end of the Land of Lincoln. The rest of the narrative is a familiar one: Jumer’s Casino Rock Island<\/strong> was up 5%, Harrah’s Joliet<\/em> ($19 million, -14%) continues to lose business to Empress Joliet<\/em> ($13 million, +8%), and were it not for Metropolis<\/em>‘ adversity, Penn National Gaming<\/strong>‘s Alton Belle<\/em> would still occupy the bottom rung of the ladder ($6.5 million, -5.5%), a sad comedown from its days as an Argosy-branded riverboat. It has the worst underperformance in terms of number gaming positions vs. percentage of market share statewide, while MGM Resorts International<\/strong>‘s Grand Victoria<\/em> riverboat is the greatest overachiever. Does this look like a state that needs more casinos and racinos to you?<\/p>\n

\"\"True, the monthly decline in Indiana<\/strong> (5%) looks worse than Illinois’ … but you’re talking about a $236 million market in the Hoosier State against a pathetically emaciated $110 million one immediately to the west. The anomalies were interesting ones. Except for Casino Aztar<\/em> ($11 million, +8%), all the southern Indiana<\/strong> riverboats posted revenue declines, with Pinnacle Entertainment<\/strong>‘s Belterra<\/strong> resort ($11 million, -14%) taking the worst hit. The only other gainers in the state were nothing-left-to-lose French Lick<\/strong> ($7.5 million, +3%) and Cordish Gaming<\/strong>‘s racino, Indiana Live<\/strong> ($21 million, +2%).<\/p>\n

\"\"Up north, Caesars Entertainment<\/strong>‘s Horseshoe Hammond<\/em> ($46 million, -9%) crushes all competitors even in a bad month, with Ameristar Casinos<\/strong>‘ traffic-challenged Resorts East Chicago<\/em> ($20 million, -7%) even remotely in the picture and outperforming everybody not named “Horseshoe.” New tribal competitors in Michigan<\/strong> are laying siege to Boyd Gaming<\/strong>‘s Blue Chip<\/em> riverboat, down 5% last month. Except for an aberrantly strong March ($252 million), Indiana’s take was par for the 2011 course and somewhat above average ($233 million) for 2010. Despite the preponderant number of slots and other positions (4,004) at Penn National<\/strong>‘s Lawrenceburg<\/strong> monster, it has to be acknowledged that Horseshoe Southern Indiana<\/strong> (pictured<\/em>, $24 million from 2,446 positions) and Indiana Live ($21 million from 1,996) are hanging in there pretty impressively, even with Penn raking $36 million off the board.<\/p>\n

\"\"Congratulations to Bally<\/strong>. The slot-maker just inked an 800-machine pact with Italian operator Lottomatica<\/strong>. This would bring Bally Technologies<\/strong>‘ inventory in the land of Dante and Verdi to 5,400 VLTs. Joseph Greff <\/strong>of J.P. Morgan<\/strong> estimates this will add $20 million in pre-tax profit while Roth Capital Markets<\/strong>‘ Todd Eilers<\/strong> says it will bring Bally’s Italian market share to 10%. As usual when confronted with good news, Wall Street<\/strong> blew cold on the stock, which lost 42 cents per share in yesterday’s trading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OK, the 9% dropoff in Illinois gambling dollars last month looks worse than it is because it mainly reflects the flood-enforced closure of Harrah’s Metropolis (left, -77%). All other casinos were down an aggregate 3%, and it didn’t much matter … 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":[40,77,60,70,7,58,68,22,11,69,30,8,21,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6872"}],"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=6872"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6875,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6872\/revisions\/6875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}