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. [...]

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 [...]

One doesn’t really think of going to shore in March, so it’s no surprise that Atlantic City casino revenues were — excluding Revel — down 14% last month. The latter grossed $10 million, pulling it almost dead even with the Golden Nugget and a bit further behind the Atlantic Club. The surprise bulletin of the [...]

Although Jon Woodrum has been a minor fixture of the Las Vegas casino scene for decades, he and son Mike Woodrum are trying to cash out of the Klondike Sunset Casino for a tidy little $3.5 million. It appeared last summer that litigation might stymie the transaction but Colliers [...]

Yeah, Beyoncé is a hard act to follow but who knew that Revel would fall so far, so fast? So enjoy this brief moment when things looked so very promising* …  in the meantime, I’m running down leads on some oldies but goodies: the

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 [...]

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 [...]

There’s no other way of saying it (although many are trying). Strip casinos got their clocks cleaned in November as Lady Luck favored the punters, not the house. A 13% dropoff on the Strip was driven by a perfect storm of factors. Sports books relearned the old lesson that it’s not whether you won or [...]

If there’s a saving grace to August’s rather glum Nevada gambling win (-3%), it’s that the month ended on a Friday, so there may be some as-yet-unreported slot revenue that will fluff the September results. (That optimism must be offset, though, by the fact that August 2012 had one more weekend day than the year [...]

Sheldon Adelson couldn’t do it but Las Vegas Sun Publisher Brian Greenspun could. The hard-money-lending business in Las Vegas is a dodgy, high-risk one at the best of times and close scrutiny of it by Sun-related publications is especially touchy. Months of investigation by yours truly into Vestin Mortgage (which made some duff investments in [...]

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 month went out on a weekend, meaning that there’s unreported slot drop that won’t show [...]

There’s a new power player in gaming and it’s … Brookfield Asset Management? The Canadian lender is already calling the shots (along with Warner Gaming) at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, a $1.5 billion quagmire into which Morgans Hotel Group led Credit Suisse. Today, Brookfield officially ousted Sol Kerzner from Atlantis Paradise Island and [...]

Black Hawk Down author Mark Bowden has penned a gripping account of how veteran racetrack executive Don Johnson (no, not that one) cleaned the clocks of the Tropicana Atlantic City, Borgata and Caesars Palace Atlantic City, to the tune of $15 million. He did it, at least in the Trop’s case, by not bringing Tropicana [...]

Baccarat win on the Las Vegas Strip began the year heavy ($194 million) and dramatic, up 199% from 2011. The whales were back in force, dropping 163% more than the previous January, putting $1.6 billion in play. An early Chinese New Year helped, as daily baccarat drop averaged $50 million, compared to $30 million the [...]

If today’s numbers from the Nevada Gaming Control Board indicate that December was good for business — especially on the Las Vegas Strip (up 4% … 7% if you take baccarat out of the equation) — January ought to have been great. Why? Because Dec. 31 fell upon a Saturday … meaning that all those [...]

OK, you’ve heard the sound bites, read the correspondence, seen the over-the-top tactics. Now Station Casinos and the Culinary Union have to make their case to a higher authority: Jon Ralston.
(Historical footnote: When Ameristar Casinos bought Station out of a sticky wicket in Missouri,

If the good news keeps raining down like this, I might have to start using the R-word … as in “recovery.” In November, Nevada’s $880 million gross was good for a 7% upsurge. The Las Vegas Strip beat the statewide average, up 9%. According to a J.P. Morgan analyst report, those numbers “reflect the continuing [...]

OK, so we’re six months early but this year marks the 50th anniversary of the Eldorado, which opened in downtown Henderson on July 1, 1962. Locals casinos wouldn’t become an industry unto themselves for years yet but the Eldorado and nearby Jokers Wild are said to hold a special place in Boyd Gaming Chairman Bill [...]

October’s revenue figures for Nevada emerged today and it was a good month statewide ($961 million, +8%) and a great one for the Las Vegas Strip ($560.5 million, +13%). Mind you, October 1 was a Saturday, meaning that some Sept. 30 slot revenues may have been rolled into the next month’s tally — per Nevada’s [...]

At the same time the cast of Viva Elvis™ was getting pink-slipped across town, Boyd Gaming was busting out its new-and-improved version of Mystic Falls, the amusement park centerpiece of Sam’s Town. (Or, to use the official nomenclature, “Mystic Falls Park Sunset Stampede Laser Light & Water Show.”) Upgraded for the first time in 17 [...]