Stiffs and Georges

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. [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

“The twilight’s last reaming”?!?!? Christina Aguilera said it, I didn’t.
Of all the proposition bets being made on Sunday’s “Big Game” (the favored Vegas euphemism), my favorite is how long it will take Alicia Keys to crawl through the National Anthem. Admittedly, Jennifer Hudson’s Wagnerian 2:10, at 2009’s Super Bowl, gives Keys a high bar to [...]

With 2013 shaping up as a good year for slot sales, Scientific Games has chosen this moment to pounce upon WMS Industries, one of the oldest, biggest and most-respected firms in the industry. SGMS shares promptly leapfrogged from $8.93 to $10.82 a share, then fell into a day-long swoon, settling back towards yesterday’s prices. WMS [...]

Themes! Themes! Themes! That was the promise made by WMS Industries, which plans to introduce no fewer than 55 of them between now and year’s end. I’d thought we were past the era in which slot manufacturers indiscriminately licensed every theme imaginable, but guess again. CFO Scott Schweinfurth (below) was summarized by J.P. Morgan analysts [...]

This has been a terrible fortnight for S&G but, hey, we’ve got some good news from Pennsylvania. Last month’s gambling revenues were reported this morning and they’re up 12%, thanks mostly to the growing popularity of table games. (Atlantic City, beware.) As for what might be called the “Aqueduct Effect,” of which I had grown [...]

This just in … the Massachusetts state Senate voted 24-14 to send casino legalization on to a conference committee, where the House’s version — passed with a crushing majority — already reposes. Differences between the two versions, obviously, will have to be reconciled but analyst Joseph Greff characterizes those as a “small hurdle” to eventual [...]

Increased funding for education is always the big selling point whenever gambling laws in Missouri are liberalized. This week, schools are finding out what sort of Indian givers their casino benefactors are. Schools are among the public services that stand to lose millions of dollars in a giant give-back from St. Louis County to its [...]

On Oct. 26, the erstwhile “Gossy Room” at The Palms will host a fundraiser for AFAN. Headlining the event will be Lainie Kazan, who — the press release informs us — is “widely known for her starring role in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.” However, one of the advantages of age is being able to [...]

After screwing the pooch in the previous legislature, it looks as though Gov. Deval Patrick (D-MA) and state lawmakers are finally on the same page regarding casino expansion in the Bay State. Analyst Joseph Greff rates the solons’ chances of success as “solid.” Their plan to carve Massachusetts into three casino-enabled regions, each designated for [...]

In the end two, casino operators bent over, grabbed their ankles and took it hard from Gov. John Kasich (R), who can claim a near-unqualified victory — and in blistering time. With money and pilings already sunk into Ohio, neither Penn National Gaming nor Rock Ohio Caesars had what it takes to just walk away [...]

Whether you spent Memorial Day grilling some bratwurst or, like me, crawling around with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a cleaning cloth, we did no harm. That can’t be said for the Illinois House of Representatives, which opened a can of whup-ass on the state’s casino industry yesterday.
In a 65-50 vote, lawmakers legalized …
• five new [...]

Another day, another Las Vegas Sands executive falls by the wayside. In the case of Marina Bay Sands, it sounds like CEO Thomas Arasi has been burned out in what must have been a pretty intense 18 months at the helm of the $5.6 billion megaresort, which struggled with schedule and budgetary issues. In a [...]

Or would “capsizing” be the right word? Late Thursday, Wells Fargo released a study of the effects on Illinois‘ casino market if a massive expansion backed by state Democrats goes through. They’re under the gun, since the whole issue gets “reset to zero” once the new Legislature is sworn in next Wednesday. [...]

Let’s get to it, with some help from Wells Fargo gaming analyst Carlo Santarelli …
Cordish Gaming won big in Maryland, where voters upheld an initiative to ratify the zoning of its Arundel Mills Mall casino project. Penn National Gaming, in a Machiavellian scheme to wrest away the license and move it to Laurel Park, bankrolled [...]

While it’s still a stretch that Sheldon Adelson is going to bank an annual $1 billion profit on Marina Bay Sands, as he predicts, he’s making money hand over fist there anyway. J.P. Morgan analysts say Marina Bay is on pace to rake in an average $1.2 billion in cash flow per year (and they [...]

It’s been leaked to the Boston Globe that a deal is at hand that would resolve the impasse currently holding casino-enabling legislation at bay. While still probably not to Gov. Deval Patrick’s liking (he wants one racino, the compromise bill would have two), it indicates that the state Senate has prevailed over the lower house. [...]

My apologies to S&G readers for the prolonged silence whilst I was on vacation. It seems that wi-fi availability in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is even spottier than I feared (although it makes a good excuse to head down to Culver’s for a “butter burger” and the best frozen custard this side of Las [...]

Randy Black, that is. The CEO who ran the Mesquite market straight into the ground (with a sizable assist from the Nevada Gaming Control Board and Gaming Commission) and turned the former Si Redd’s Oasis into a slot route — a pathetic 16 machines — has kept his promise to put Black Gaming into bankruptcy. [...]