{"id":9093,"date":"2012-05-24T09:21:03","date_gmt":"2012-05-24T17:21:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=9093"},"modified":"2020-01-07T07:48:31","modified_gmt":"2020-01-07T15:48:31","slug":"case-bets-sands-caesars-boyd-mgm-wynn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/case-bets-sands-caesars-boyd-mgm-wynn\/","title":{"rendered":"Case Bets: Sands, Caesars, Boyd, MGM & Wynn"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"After blowing a half-million dollars on lobbying in Massachusetts<\/strong>, cantankerous casino owner Sheldon Adelson<\/strong> took his ball and went home, as reported earlier. Las Vegas Sands<\/strong>‘ rather weak excuse<\/a>: “[Boston] didn’t synch up with our business model.” Sands fails to elaborate upon the logic whereby Connecticut<\/strong> can support two casinos but Massachusetts only one … theirs. The jet black-haired billionaire’s skittishness may have more to do with Suffolk Downs<\/strong> upping the ante to $1 billion (double the minimum) for its planned racino. Following asset sales in Missouri<\/strong> and South Africa<\/strong>, Suffolk partner Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> ought to have the cash to cover half that and still fund its commitment to Baltimore<\/strong>. However, I wouldn’t count on track owner Richard “Coastal Marina” Fields<\/strong> coming up with a half-billion dollars in a pinch, so Gary Loveman<\/strong> better offload a few more casinos, just to make sure Suffolk can back up its bid.<\/p>\n

\"\"Even if Sheldon is sincere, he may be jumping the gun<\/a>. Next month, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission<\/strong>, in the words of Chairman Stephen Crosby<\/strong>, will “re-look at what the market could bear, and see what is the economic prognosis for the model in the legislation … and we\u2019re going to say, \u2018What do you think of your projections now?\u2019<\/em>” In other words, they’ll be pondering what the traffic will bear and strongly imply that some licenses may be held in abeyance. It looks like the red-headed tycoon turned into a cheese-eating surrender monkey before the battle was truly fought<\/a>. In the meantime, he’ll be pursuing under-served markets … like New York City<\/strong>, right, Shel? Yup, no competition there, nosiree Bob.<\/p>\n

(Update<\/em><\/span>: Another possible reason for Adelson’s reluctance — disappointing ROI at Sands Bethlehem<\/strong>, despite strong revenues. A Wall Street<\/strong> analyst pegs the latest project cost at $850 million, which puts the megaresort on pace for a 13% return on investment this year.)<\/p>\n

Who knew?<\/strong> After its blockbuster deal with Peninsula Gaming<\/strong>, purchaser Boyd Gaming<\/strong> now finds itself the proud parent of four Louisiana<\/strong> OTB parlors. Since it will soon own two racinos in the Pelican State, those betting parlors should generate a tidy bit of synergy. Contrary to coverage in the Las Vegas<\/strong> papers, the Tri-Parish Times<\/em> reports that Peninsula was $1.2 billion in debt and Boyd is only paying $200 million up front … but Caesars Entertainment wouldn’t have owned a Bally’s<\/strong>-branded riverboat in 1994, so take the TPT<\/em> article with a grain of salt.<\/p>\n

\"\"Boyd’s new ship, the Amelia Belle<\/em> (left) is a well-traveled vessel, having gone through previous incarnations as Bally’s Casino<\/em>, the Belle of Orleans<\/em> (under then-Harrah’s Entertainment<\/strong>) and more ownership changes than I can count. Upon devouring Park Place Entertainment<\/strong>, Harrah’s sold Belle of Orleans<\/em> to Columbia Sussex<\/strong>, who moved it west and rechristened it Amelia Belle<\/em> … but only after having to repair severe Hurricane Katrina<\/strong> damage. (Dodged a bullet there, Loveman did.) She’s a doughty craft and her value has appreciated quite nicely (having been picked up by Peninsula for a mere $106.5 million). That must be somewhat chagrining for former owner Caesars, which has been dangling multiple properties for sale but hasn’t interested Boyd in any of them.<\/p>\n

\"\"Cost-cutting much?<\/strong> It looks like a human sacrifice will be made to the gods of debt-servicing at MGM Resorts International<\/strong>. Word is, the company’s media-buy department will be downsized, with much of the work outsourced to R&R Partners<\/strong>. This bit of reported corner-cutting comes right after MGM officials were up in Toronto<\/strong>, brandishing promises of $3 billion-$5 billion in capital investment before provincial officials. Hey, when you’re $13.5 billion in the hole, what’s $5 billion more, right?<\/p>\n

Any MGM cutbacks<\/strong> are a hangnail compared to the 27,000-person jobs massacre<\/a> that new CEO Meg Whitman<\/strong> unleashed on Hewlett-Packard<\/strong> yesterday. I’m primarily surprised that there were any<\/em> HP jobs left to eliminate after Carly Fiorina<\/strong>‘s reign of terror and error.<\/p>\n

Las Vegas must be<\/strong> on the mend. When was the last time you saw improving Las Vegas Strip<\/strong> revenues cited as a buffer against disappointing returns<\/a> from … Macao<\/strong>? Like never, right?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After blowing a half-million dollars on lobbying in Massachusetts, cantankerous casino owner Sheldon Adelson took his ball and went home, as reported earlier. Las Vegas Sands‘ rather weak excuse: “[Boston] didn’t synch up with our business model.” Sands fails to … 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":[60,15,28,14,67,22,84,62,53,72,112,11,39,101,95,111,25,12,32,9,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9093"}],"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=9093"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25773,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9093\/revisions\/25773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}