Stiffs and Georges

One of gaming’s biggest new markets went out with a whimper, not a bang, when colorful Toronto Mayor Rob Ford nixed a scheduled vote on whether to put a casino in the lakeside city, hoping to extract a $97 million “hosting fee” from Ontario. Faced with probable defeat, the measure was pulled, leaving all the [...]

Subtract one casino from the Tropicana Entertainment portfolio: The River Palms Resort & Casino, in Laughlin, just went for $7 million today. TropEnt CEO Anthony Rodio isn’t pulling out of the Colorado River market altogether. He says the company will continue to maintain its presence at the Tropicana Express (a former Ramada), which has been [...]

A preview of Ameristar Casinos‘ 4Q12 report draws an about-what-we-expected reaction from Joseph Greff of J.P. Morgan. Ameristar narrowly missed most of Wall Street’s expectations, a result Greff partially attributes to “sluggish … regional gaming spend.” Hardest-hit by the competition was Ameristar’s Kansas City casino (left, -8%), which has been losing business to Penn National [...]

Update: Seeking Alpha’s Brad Thomas has run the numbers on the Penn split and doesn’t like the risk/reward scenario.
Fifteen years and many consolidations ago, the casino industry was seized by a brain fever. It was set off by the bidding war between Hilton International (led by Steve Bollenbach) and Starwood Resorts (then run by current [...]

This just in: It’s another winning strategy from those gaming-industry masterminds at Colony Capital. God forbid you’re playing at the Atlantic Club and work up an appetite. Or did Tom Barrack hear about “Stiff of the Year” and wants to get in the race?
There’s no point in revisiting Midwestern casino misery month in, month out. [...]

But first, because it will never, ever get old …

Also this, from @daveweigel: “[Florida] exit poll: Obama winning Jewish vote by 40 points. 40 points. Nice work, Sheldon Adelson.” We’ll tap dance on Sheldon’s head some more further down, but let’s roll out the barrel for gaming’s winners last night. There were five ballot questions, [...]

While nobody quite matched the $221 million loss posted by Caesars Entertainment, the gaming industry didn’t lack for underachievers in 3Q12, thanks largely to softness in domestic casino markets. Ameristar Casinos reported a $16 million profit, despite a 2% revenue decline. Slightly improved performance in Colorado was offset by new competition in Kansas City (-7%) [...]

Our favorite welfare queen, Xpress West (née Desert Xpress) isn’t letting its plans be constrained by anything so mundane as reality. Original pitchman Sig “The Fixer” Rogich has crawled off into the underbrush somewhere but his Choo-Choo-to-Nowhere has found additional front men. And Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) continues to push for a record amount of [...]

Just to make sure you’re not piggybacking onto its mobile-gambling systems, Cantor Gaming is partnering with Locaid to provide “geo-fencing” for its pocket casinos, which can now be played damn near anywhere on a casino property. (The real endgame, however, appears to be to have these fences in place when Internet gambling goes “live” in [...]

VIP junket operators are coming to Singapore, J.P. Morgan stock analysts reported. Actually, they’re already there in the form of “shadow junkets,” according to Singaporean media. And if Las Vegas Sands or Genting Berhad are knowingly dealing with illegal junketeers, they deserve to have the book hurled at them by the nation’s government. However, a [...]

As new casino boss Thomas McCartney tries to stabilize the sinking ship that is The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, he’s tossed overboard some human ballast in the form of casino employees. (Thirty full-time dealers are alleged to have been pink-slipped.) This could be a case where Cosmo had too many dealers on the floor at [...]

So you’re running in the Zappos.com Rock ‘n’ Roll Las Vegas Marathon and, as you pass the Riviera, your hamstrings burning you like a Donald Trump real estate scheme, you have a sudden urge to lay some bread on that night’s Detroit Lions vs. New Orleans Saints game. You’re in luck … or in Lucky’s [...]

It’s all over for the current administration at Hooters Casino Hotel. They’ve given up trying to fight efforts by Canyon Capital Realty Advisors to have the money-losing property sold via foreclosure auction. If Canpartners wins at auction, it may go after additional money by seeking deficiency judgments. Hooters’ hired gun, Innovation Capital, continues to plumb [...]

Aliante Station is now formally the property of Texas Pacific Group, Standard General and Apollo Management. Two of those funds also own Caesars Entertainment, which might create some interesting “Chinese wall” situations. (Can’t have trade secrets passing back and forth, y’know.) Either Station Casinos is getting some external input on how Aliante should be run [...]

Our beloved casino industry runneth over with individuals, companies and even sovereign nations that have a vested interest in the legalization of Internet poker … and more. Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX, left) knows this, which is why he’s coming to Global Gaming Expo to peddle his influence on Capitol Hill, such as it might be. [...]

There’s no one more depraved than a politician looking to close a revenue shortfall. So we’ve learned from the drive-by shootings hailing from the amoral outlaw band otherwise known as the Nevada Legislature. As sage political pundit Obi-Wan Kenobi observed, “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.”

According to the Las [...]

Owners of the Riviera and the Las Vegas Hilton published their respective annual reports and it wasn’t a good day for the north end of the Strip, where bargain-priced casinos fight a holding action against the market forces of the Great Recession. The good news for both was that losses in 2010 were narrower than [...]

A frequent Hard Rock Hotel & Casino player, for one, is happy to know that Navegante Group is waiting in the wings to take the reins should Morgans Hotel Group continue to falter. (The owners of the HRH have until Feb. 28 to figure out how to restructure or pay back $1.25 billion in debt.) [...]

Call 1-877-612-8494 and you could be the next owner of a Colorado conversation-starter that’s sure to impress your friends.

Actually it’s not, if you’ve lived there (as I did for four wonderful years). However, Iowa’s casino industry is, down one-tenth of a percent from October 2009. Actually, nine of the 17 non-tribal casinos recorded revenue increases, particularly the small riverboats, led by Isle of Capri Casinos‘ Miss Marquette, up 11%. But a terrible month [...]