Stiffs and Georges

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. [...]

It was one of the stupefying follies of the Caesars Entertainment LBO that CEO Gary Loveman believed the company could take on $30 billion in debt and continue to expand. Even as he tries to reshuffle old assets into new IPOs, Loveman is finally coming around to what some of us knew years ago: The [...]

Break out a flagon of whatever Derek Stevens is drinking and put it on my tab, lads. To commemorate the first leg of the Triple Crown, he’s holding a May 3-4 Sigma Derby tournament. Buy-in starts at $50, so starting emptying your piggy banks for some of the best time-on-device action in Las Vegas. To [...]

“Like the travel industry, gaming is a complex industry.” — newly elected American Gaming Association President Geoff Freeman, making the understatement of the year. Only 38 and with 16 years in the travel industry already behind him, Freeman (pictured) is practically a babe in arms, especially when compared to politically savvy predecessor Frank J. Fahrenkopf. [...]

Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than right: When Tamares Group made an indiscriminate splurge on downtown Las Vegas real estate in 2004, it was banking on a construction boom that never took place. It also found itself with several casinos and slot-route locations for which it never had any strategy. But Tamares sure was [...]

Although East Coast-based Gansevoort Hotel Group isn’t a household name around Las Vegas, it soon could be, if a planned collaboration with Caesars Entertainment comes to fruition. The latter had briefly planned to re-do Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall & Saloon as a clubber-oriented hotel/nightclub in collaboration with Victor Drai. Called “Caesars Drai’s,” the new theme — [...]

It seems potentially very funny … but isn’t Bradley Cooper getting rather dark and tragic for this sort of thing? He looks like a Quentin Tarantino protagonist who’s been parachuted into a Disney picture.

S&G contributor JeffInOKC returns from a too-long absence with some thoughts on one of our favorite topics, the North Strip …

It is common for us to hear the term “Too Big to Fail,” but I think the true story of Fountainebleau is “Too Big to Succeed.” The original plan for the property [...]

In the most inevitable headline of 2013, Revel has — brace yourselves — filed for bankruptcy. It will become the latest in a long string of casinos that are owned and run by banks: Two-thirds of outstanding debt will be converted to equity in the property, although I doubt that two-thirds of Revel is worth [...]

Today’s top story is the rumor, first aired on LasVegasAdvisor.com that Binion’s Gambling Hall & Hotel will close in July, lock, stock and million-dollar display. This dovetails with an earlier report that a detailed makeover is in the works. So Binion’s could follow the lead of the Plaza and go the short-term-closure route, rather than [...]

There are gambling markets … and then there’s Las Vegas. Players opened their wallets — oh, did they ever — and lost big. Casino winnings on the Las Vegas Strip were up 13.5% and Nevada casinos overall did 10% better than last year, for a statewide gross of $943 million. Downtown casino winnings shot up [...]

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) loves to veto Internet gambling bills so much that he’s just done it for a second time. There was incremental progress: In punting the ball to the Legislature’s one-yard line, Christie endorsed the idea of Internet gambling, just not in the form that reached his desk. He wants a [...]

Scientific Games has lost the faith of Deutsche Bank’s Carlo Santarelli. The analyst put out a “sell” recommendation this morning on SGMS stock, issuing a new target price of $6/share, down from $7. (Scientific was trading at $9.49 at the time.) Is this a big deal? Yes, because you see gaming stocks pegged as a [...]

It may have taken time for Gary Loveman’s chickens to come home to roost but they’re doing it by the flockful. To raise cash, pronto, Caesars Entertainment — which hasn’t turned a profit in over three years — has piled several random assets into wishfully named entity Caesars Growth Venture Partners, in which it would [...]

If you live in the greater Las Vegas metropolitan area, you’ve probably had a stiff dose of this ad, which is in heavy rotation during the morning news shows. I don’t know whether to be impressed that a grind joint like Club Fortune Casino has a TV-advertising budget or nonplussed by the marketing message. I [...]

Penn National Gaming trimmed its 2013 revenue projections today by 3% — not surprising, given the “headwinds” represented by recent tax changes that will eat into Americans’ discretionary income. Sluggish early slot performance in the Columbus and Toledo markets was blamed on a lack of marketing and comping “into underpenetrated submarkets,” as Joseph Greff of [...]

Seems there’s no honor among business partners: While lugging Caesars Entertainment on his back from Cleveland to Cincinnati and thence to Baltimore, mogul Dan Gilbert had a side deal of his own going. He’s buying a majority stake in Greektown Casino (right). This at least portends the rescue of Greektown from bumbling ownership and revolving-door [...]

Although the government of Macao enjoys nothing better than to make casino owners wait and fidget for their land leases to be “gazetted,” today is MGM Resorts International’s lucky day. MGM China received final approval for its Cotai Strip megaresort. Deutsche Bank analyst Carlo Santarelli calls the timing “ahead of expectations,” which suggests that Macanese [...]

By the time Revel CEO Kevin DeSanctis realizes he’s made a mistake, he’s almost always past the point of no return. Although it is my deeply rooted opinion that smoking is a noxious, disgusting habit that invades other people’s space, banning it has been demonstrated to cause a 15% or greater decrease in the revenues [...]

Las Vegas‘ most famous sheriff (mythologized weekly by Dennis Quaid on Vegas) was the victim of this, er, unfortunate Los Angeles Times gaffe …
… which The Atlantic has selected as one of the best typos of 2012. I’ve had butt cracks in my image and it’s not pretty, man. Nascent blog VegasWTF is currently in [...]