{"id":8589,"date":"2012-03-08T12:43:04","date_gmt":"2012-03-08T20:43:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=8589"},"modified":"2012-03-09T09:56:47","modified_gmt":"2012-03-09T17:56:47","slug":"the-whales-of-january-shrinking-hooters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/the-whales-of-january-shrinking-hooters\/","title":{"rendered":"The whales of January; Shrinking Hooters"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Baccarat win on the Las Vegas Strip<\/strong> began the year heavy ($194 million) and dramatic, up 199% from 2011. The whales were back in force, dropping 163% more than the previous January, putting $1.6 billion in play. An early Chinese New Year<\/strong> helped, as daily baccarat drop averaged $50 million, compared to $30 million the year prior. The volume of other table-game play rose 11%, with players losing 8% more to the casinos this year. Slightly tighter slot hold was just barely enough, though, to offset less coin-in, leaving slot revenues flat from 2011. All this revenue growth was achieved with only a 1% increase in visitation from last year.<\/p>\n

While nowhere else was January as dramatic as on the Strip (+29%), only Reno<\/strong> got walloped (-9%), while Elko<\/strong> and the Carson City<\/strong> areas experienced small declines. Downtown<\/strong> had a nice, 14% bounce, North Las Vegas<\/strong> was up 15.5% and the Boulder Strip<\/strong> recorded 9% improvement. (Deutsche Bank<\/strong>‘s Carlo Santarelli<\/strong> reports the Boyd Gaming<\/strong> saw 7% improvement.) Even Laughlin<\/strong> caught a break, up 6%, after six straight months of negative comparisons. Lake Tahoe<\/strong> had a relatively placid January, up 2%. Away from the Strip, there’s still too much volatility from month to month to make any forecasts but recovery on the Strip appears quite tangible. Best of all, there’s strength across the board, strongly suggesting we’re past that ropey period when Strip casinos clung to the baccarat lifeline as their primary means of survival.<\/p>\n

\"\"New, private-equity ownership<\/strong> at the long-troubled Hooters Casino Hotel<\/strong> may run the place into the ground even faster than the recently ousted regime. One of its first, thrift-oriented moves (or so I’m hearing) will be to give the hoot, er, boot<\/em> to resident shows Men of X<\/em><\/a>, Purple Reign<\/em><\/a> and “topless review [sic<\/em>]” Raack N’ Roll<\/em><\/a>. Great, give people even less<\/em> of a reason to be on property. I’m not saying those productions were quality entertainment but operating Hooters as a grind joints looks like an express ride to oblivion.<\/p>\n

Vegas new growth industry?<\/strong> Normally, I’d say “pot” but if we’re speaking of strictly legal businesses, then it’s porn<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The benefits of gaming<\/strong>. If you’re the Sycuan Tribe<\/strong>, it means you can buy back enough land to triple the size of your reservation<\/a>. Even though the tribe has volunteered to make up the potential, $1.3 million, annual shortfall in property taxes, that’s not sufficient to satisfy crotchety San Diego County<\/strong> and some local homeowners who have visions of rampaging, Redskin real estate development riding through their heads at full gallop. Me, I say good on the Sycuan, who have made the system work to their benefit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Baccarat win on the Las Vegas Strip began the year heavy ($194 million) and dramatic, up 199% from 2011. The whales were back in force, dropping 163% more than the previous January, putting $1.6 billion in play. An early Chinese … 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":[88,60,34,28,51,14,4,153,76,49,10,78,79,20,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8589"}],"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=8589"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8601,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8589\/revisions\/8601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}