{"id":9667,"date":"2012-09-20T13:32:02","date_gmt":"2012-09-20T21:32:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=9667"},"modified":"2021-02-07T10:03:55","modified_gmt":"2021-02-07T18:03:55","slug":"louisiana-better-than-expected-arkansas-casinos-wait-til-year-after-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/louisiana-better-than-expected-arkansas-casinos-wait-til-year-after-next\/","title":{"rendered":"Louisiana better than expected; Arkansas casinos: Wait ’til year after next"},"content":{"rendered":"

“It could have been better.” That will be the refrain from Louisiana<\/strong>, up 1% last month despite some final-week disruption by an unwelcome visitor named \"\"Hurricane Isaac<\/strong>. Allowing for a few blips here and there throughout the state, including a rare bad month for El Dorado Shreveport<\/em>, the Isaac-related upheaval was pretty localized. As you’d expect, New Orleans<\/strong> (-9%) and Baton Rouge<\/strong> (-1%) had the worst of it. Pinnacle Entertainment<\/strong>‘s Boomtown New Orleans<\/em> was off 19%, while all other casinos in the Big Easy merely experience single-digit declines. Penn National Gaming<\/strong>‘s Hollywood Baton Rouge<\/em> was down 5% while Belle of Baton Rouge<\/em> improved by the same amount. Go figure. Lake Charles<\/strong>, naturally, continues to chug along, up 11%.<\/p>\n

Despite Pinnacle’s adversity in New Orleans, it’s on the verge of leapfrogging Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> as the Pelican State’s revenue leader as soon as the September tallies from L’Auberge Baton Rouge<\/strong> are compiled. Already, with two casinos to Caesars’ three, Pinnacle is doing a superior volume of business, proportionally: $46.4 million last month vs. $48.5 million for Caesars. In the last four months, L’Auberge du Lac<\/strong> is significantly outpacing Harrah’s New Orleans<\/strong>, a recent phenomenon.<\/p>\n

\"\"Those who say<\/strong> the casino industry isn’t out the woods by a long shot received supporting evidence today from Delaware<\/strong>. Feeling pinched between Pennsylvania<\/strong> and Maryland<\/strong>, racino operators in Delaware are asking for a second round of tax breaks<\/a>. In return for promising to invest in their operations, the state’s racinos got $7.75 million apiece in fee reductions earlier this year. Evidently that’s not enough. Citing low table-game tax rates in the aforementioned states, racing interests want the levy lopped from 35% to something in the 15%-20% range. When casino lobbyists are actually able to pry tax reductions from a state, you know the industry’s hurting.<\/p>\n

Time’s up!<\/strong> Casino expansion into Arkansas<\/strong> looks to be off the table, at least for two more years. Texas<\/strong> businessman Michael Wasserman<\/strong>‘s petition drive to \"\"seed the state with seven casinos came up woefully short on valid signatures<\/a>. His plea for a do-over was unanimously ashcanned by the Arkansas Supreme Court<\/strong>. However, since the Wasserman question has already been printed on November ballots, we could get the eccentric Election Day<\/strong> result that voters approve a gambling expansion that has already been literally ruled ‘out of court.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“It could have been better.” That will be the refrain from Louisiana, up 1% last month despite some final-week disruption by an unwelcome visitor named Hurricane Isaac. Allowing for a few blips here and there throughout the state, including a … 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":[28,14,26,7,84,72,69,95,30,111,25,31,114],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9667"}],"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=9667"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29229,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9667\/revisions\/29229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}