{"id":6972,"date":"2011-06-20T16:58:32","date_gmt":"2011-06-21T00:58:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=6972"},"modified":"2023-02-01T06:11:11","modified_gmt":"2023-02-01T14:11:11","slug":"isle-sheds-a-spare-part-bluhm-rebounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/isle-sheds-a-spare-part-bluhm-rebounds\/","title":{"rendered":"Isle sheds a spare part; Bluhm rebounds"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Not long ago, S&G<\/em> was musing aloud at the oddity of Isle of Capri Casinos<\/strong> running two riverboats on Lake Charles<\/strong>, one of which grossed only $1 million or so a month. That seemed rather an extravagance. Somebody at Isle must have similarly,\u00a0 because the company is selling its Crown Casino<\/em> vessel to Paradise Casino<\/strong>. The latter is an aegis of Silver Slipper Gaming<\/strong>, which also owns a racino in Louisiana<\/strong>, as well as an eponymous casino in Bay St. Louis<\/strong>, Miss.<\/p>\n

\"\"Paradise proposes to hoist anchor and move Crown Casino<\/em> to Bossier City<\/strong> — and build a hotel — rather than stay on Lake Charles and duke it out with Isle’s Grand Palais<\/em>, Pinnacle Entertainment<\/strong>‘s L’Auberge du Lac<\/strong> and Dan Lee<\/strong>‘s $400 million Mojito Pointe<\/strong>, still a-building<\/a>. (Paradise lost out to Lee in the last round of license-bidding, so Crown Casino<\/em> is a consolation prize to itself.) The Crown<\/em> vessel served to handle overflow business from Grand Palais<\/em> but these aren’t times, Louisiana<\/strong>‘s gaming economy being flat, when overflow is a pressing concern.<\/p>\n

\"\"But if Lake Charles is competitive<\/strong>, what to make of Paradise Gaming’s plans to drop anchor in Bossier City? That market’s been hit hard by the emergence of Class III tribal gaming in Oklahoma<\/strong> and the intra-market competition promises to be stiff. However, a local economist predicts that Bossier City can absorb the additional capacity by late 2012<\/a>. I’m loath to agree with Roger Gros<\/strong> but the idea of Crown Casino<\/em> growing the market seems far-fetched. It didn’t do it in the lucrative Lake Charles region, so the odds facing it in the greater Shreveport area (halfway through its third year of decline) are worse still.<\/p>\n

Better Gros’ measured caution than the Chicken Little hysterics<\/a> of Harrah’s Louisiana Downs<\/strong> GM Mike Rich<\/strong>: The sky is falling! Casinos will close! Maybe if Rich was offering a superior product he wouldn’t be losing business to competitors like El Dorado<\/strong>. Damn that free market!<\/p>\n

\"\"Closing the gap<\/strong>. After weak starts, developer Neil Bluhm<\/strong>‘s two Pennsylvania<\/strong> casinos are paying off. Table game numbers were released today and Philadelphia-based SugarHouse<\/strong> ($6.6 million) shot past Bluhm’s mammoth Rivers Casino<\/strong> in Pittsburgh<\/strong> last month ($5.8 million), closing in on the $6.9 million won at the tables by Harrah’s Chester Downs<\/strong>. (Parx Casino<\/strong> and Sands Bethlehem<\/strong> led the state with $9.8 million and $7.2 million, respectively.)<\/p>\n

\"\"In overall gaming revenue<\/strong>, Rivers has grown by one-sixth over the first five months of 2011, posting year-over-year gains from 38% to 64%. Pretty showy stuff. There are, of course, no y\/y comparisons available for SugarHouse (right<\/em>). However, it has grown its winnings by fully one-third<\/em> since January and was one of only two casinos (the other being Mount Airy<\/strong>) in the state to post higher grosses in May than March. That will provide mathematical ammunition for those who contend that Philadelphia can still support a fourth<\/em> casino.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not long ago, S&G was musing aloud at the oddity of Isle of Capri Casinos running two riverboats on Lake Charles, one of which grossed only $1 million or so a month. That seemed rather an extravagance. Somebody at Isle … 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":[28,145,7,85,84,35,91,95,30,111,12,20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6972"}],"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=6972"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32276,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6972\/revisions\/32276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}