Stiffs and Georges

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) is banking on $180 million in Internet casino revenue to make his budget work. That might be a little off — if by “little” you mean 80%. Online wagering could bring in a comparatively scant $30 million … not surprising given the difficulty that some of the major players [...]

Foxwoods Resort Casino CEO Scott “Woody” Butera didn’t close the sale with Milford voters earlier this week, but they didn’t slam the door on him either. Rather than prejudice the issue with a town-meeting vote, local sentiment favors a city-wide referendum. Although casino opponents have dominated the argument so far, hearing from Foxwoods-in-Milford supporters seems [...]

A spiffy makeover and a nostalgia-themed market position aren’t helping the Riviera as customers gravitate back toward higher-priced hotels. A bad neighborhood, while hardly a new phenomenon, isn’t helping. Having Echelon and Fontainebleau as your neighbors is akin to living next to a cemetery and a slum, respectively. “We anticipate that our walk-in traffic will [...]

Just when boosters of casino expansion in Illinois thought they had a done deal, Gov. Pat Quinn (D) sprung a carefully concealed snare: No pension reform, no dice. He dismissed Rep. Lou Lang’s endless, insane casino crusade as a “shiny object.” Even gay marriage is a higher priority for Quinn (who favors it) than adding [...]

Penn National Gaming has filed paperwork with the SEC for an IPO that would enable you to buy into 19 Penn casinos, including flop Hollywood Perryville (shown). This Penn stalking horse would go by the incredibly generic name of Gaming & Leisure Properties (ticker symbol GLPI), a moniker so dull it must have been conceived [...]

We don’t know how it managed it but congratulations to The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. It finally realized how to market to those hitherto-elusive creatures known as “gamblers.” Casino revenue shot up 33%, winning $41 million from players, partly due to better-than-expected hold. Room rates ($273) and 88% also continued to be some of the [...]

Gone and soon to be forgotten is the fugly NASCAR Cafe (site of terrible customer service), one of Bill Bennett’s dubious ‘enhancements’ to the Sahara during his ownership. Current owner Sam Nazarian is ripping the Sahara apart in earnest, although this story implies that two of the hotel towers will get just a light makeover. [...]

After a boffo February, the Silver State also posted extraordinary numbers in March. As Deutsche Bank headlined its report, “Different Month, Same Tune.” Analyst Carlo Santarelli cautioned, “we believe the underlying trends are not as strong as the headline would suggest,” pointing toward slippage in slot handle and in table drop (down 10.5%), excluding baccarat. [...]

Hey, if you had an albatross the size of Caesars Entertainment slung around your neck, you’d be understandably subject to skepticism and perhaps even being called out in public, perhaps to the point of getting tetchy about it. That’s the plight of Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert. The latter has his thumb in casino pies [...]

That “thud” you just heard was the price of an Atlantic City casino hitting its lowest level ever. In litigation filed against Colony Capital, spurned buyer Rational Group said it was to have paid only $15 million for the Atlantic Club Hotel. Having done so many things wrong, it’s only apt that Colony CEO Tom [...]

“MGM [Resorts International] still has much of its business in on the Strip, unlike its major rivals Las Vegas Sands Corp. and Wynn Resorts … Those companies both reported gains for the first three months of the year because of their Macau resorts, while Caesars Entertainment, which has no presence in [...]

Yes, the comedy is finished in Springfield, at least for the moment. In an episode worthy of The Simpsons and after an epic amount of foot-dragging, Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno was cajoled and ultimately browbeaten into actually taking a stand on which gambling company will get the city’s nod to build a resort downtown. And [...]

Every few years, brows are knitted earnestly in discussion of whether this will finally be the year in which Japan legalizes casino gambling. I’ve been hearing versions of this debate regularly since 2005, so you’ll pardon me if I suppress a yawn. Yes, billions of dollars — to say nothing of various Asian currencies — [...]

Pricewaterhouse Coopers, accountant to the stars — and Las Vegas Sands — tendered its resignation last week, news that Sands kept carefully under wraps until after the markets closed on Friday. After a brief, initial shock, Sands shares went back to trading as usual. J.P. Morgan analyst Joseph Greff explained the rupture thusly: “we think [...]

“Slot machines and blackjack tables have no power at all. What we are not building is a box of slots. We’re building a beautiful hotel that just happens to have a gaming room in the back.”– Steve Wynn, repositioning himself as an urban hotelier in the course of unveiling a $1.2 billion, proposed casino [...]

All but a very few Ameristar Casinos shareholders voted to approve the company’s takeover by Pinnacle Entertainment, in one of the fastest M&A deals in industry memory. Regulatory approvals are still pending in Nevada and other states but Ameristar always kept its nose clean and Pinnacle has generally behaved itself under previous CEO Dan Lee [...]

Even the illusion of a rising tide lifts all boats, it would appear. Yesterday’s big stock-pump by Caesars Entertainment carried Boyd Gaming up with it, as did much-better-than-expected first-quarter numbers from Boyd. Shares that closed Tuesday at $8.94 were riding as high a $11.70 today. As one Wall Street newsletter put it “What to do [...]

If you have been waiting for the moment to sell your Caesars Entertainment stock and get out unscathed, even making a tidy profit, that moment is now. Actually, it was March 20 this year, when CZR hit an all-time high of $17.54, gently sloping off thereafter. That continued an impressive comeback for a stock that’s [...]

“Apollo’s sixth flagship fund was carrying Caesars [Entertainment] at one-fifth of its $1.34 billion investment as of Sept. 30, according to a marketing document obtained by Bloomberg News. Caesars had returned $158.8 million to the private-equity firm, the document shows.” — yup, Apollo Management and its co-founder, Leon Black, have done it yet again. Nice [...]

Decimation of the slot floor at Hollywood Columbus proved to be just what the doctor ordered, “given the initial lackluster start and relatively low investor expectations,” as J.P. Morgan analyst Joseph Greff writes. Minus 515 machines, revenues at H’wood Columbus last month were now $21 million, including $173/day/slot — not ideal but getting there and [...]