{"id":9425,"date":"2012-08-09T10:04:56","date_gmt":"2012-08-09T18:04:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=9425"},"modified":"2012-08-17T15:11:52","modified_gmt":"2012-08-17T23:11:52","slug":"nevada-were-skewed-dark-side-of-the-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/nevada-were-skewed-dark-side-of-the-force\/","title":{"rendered":"Nevada: We’re skewed!; Dark Side of the Force"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I always hate doing Nevada<\/strong> gaming numbers because A)<\/strong> it’s redundant with the coverage in the local dailies and B)<\/strong> almost every month you have to trot out the caveat that — as was the case in June — the month went out on a weekend, meaning that there’s unreported slot drop that won’t show up for another 30 days. So it’s a rare month when you’re not having to deal with some form of skewed revenue reportage. Ergo, when you hear that June manifested a 6% drop, partly due to low slot hold, how much credence can you put in that statistic? Carlo Santarelli<\/strong> of Deutsche Bank <\/strong>calls the numbers “stale,”<\/a> which is somewhat unfair, considering that heavy baccarat losses drove a 32% surge a year ago. But how much do you wanna bet that we’ll see at least a single-digit uptick in July, which ended midweek? Sheesh!<\/p>\n

(Update<\/strong>: Visitation rose 2% in June and ADRs were up 8.5%<\/a>, making me look on the gambling-revenue numbers with even greater skepticism.)<\/p>\n

No surprise<\/strong>, the Strip (-4.5%) did better than the state overall, which is par for our slow, shallow trajectory of recovery. 21% more baccarat play still translated into 4% less win. Non-baccarat table revs \"\"were flat, however, despite 8% less money dropped. Even a lower slot hold (93%) couldn’t stave off slight declines in handle (-2%) and winnings (-8%). Where accounting quirks may really be creating mischief is in the seesawing, schizoid numbers coming from the locals and drive-in (more like “drive-by”) markets, although Mesquite<\/strong> seems to be on the comeback trail<\/a>, thanks to Michael Gaughan<\/strong>. April, which ended on a Monday, saw boffo biz for Downtow<\/strong>n (+25%), North Las Vegas<\/strong> (+42% [!]) and Boulder Strip<\/strong> (+25%). Flip the script to June and it’s -13%, -26% and -23% for those three jurisdictions, respectively. Extrapolating a larger narrative from these yo-yo-ing stats must drive Dr. David G. Schwartz<\/strong> (above<\/em>) to \u00a0deep sighs of exasperation. At least when we look back across 2011, we can see stolid but fairly steady growth, 3% overall.<\/p>\n

The Diss of Death<\/strong> went to Lake Tahoe<\/strong> and Reno<\/strong>, both of which Santarelli consigns to the nebulous “Other Nevada” category (up 6%, however). Turning to the generally more sanguine Joseph Greff <\/strong>of J.P. Morgan<\/strong>, we find that those two seasonally driven markets were up 17% and 9%, respectively. But nobody ever reports that most reliable of all economic barometers: Wendover<\/strong>. Like I always say, as Wendover goes, so goes Nevada<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"Dark Side of the Force<\/strong>. Has normally customer-friendly Raving Consulting<\/strong> gone over to the Sith Lords<\/strong>? At its annual Casino Marketing Conference<\/strong>, consultant Deb Hilgeman<\/strong> advocated reducing comps for the 99% and increasing them for the 1% … or something broadly along those lines<\/a>. Incidentally, 1%-oriented Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas<\/strong> has widened its loyalty program across all points of sale. Thus, by buying me a Kelly Clarkson<\/strong> T-shirt, my wife got $5 in free slot play. Consequently, I look better and she finally has a reason to play slots at the Cosmo. It’s a win-win.<\/p>\n

Make it so<\/strong>. The Las Vegas Review-Journal<\/em> previewed the Annual Star Trek<\/em> Convention<\/strong> (in its second year at The Rio<\/strong>, praise be) and managed to be respectful toward Trekkies<\/a>. After a couple of years under Editor Michael Hengel<\/strong>, the paper’s knuckle-dragging tendencies may be finally behind it. I, however, somewhat immodestly continue to believe that this is the definitive <\/a>Star Trek<\/em> Convention story. Live long and prosper, dear reader. Oh, and stay thirsty, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I always hate doing Nevada gaming numbers because A) it’s redundant with the coverage in the local dailies and B) almost every month you have to trot out the caveat that — as was the case in June — the … 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":[88,66,28,51,14,4,7,76,53,126,10,78,79,19,17,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9425"}],"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=9425"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9500,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9425\/revisions\/9500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}