Penn: Start making sense!; Casinos clean up in Lege

Casinos in Ohio have not been living up to revenue expectations. Given such a fallow market, what has Penn National Gaming decided to do? Break ground on two racinos, of course! One is in the Dayton area, the other — $250 million Mahoning Valley Race Course — is near Youngstown, and Penn is pushing for a third. Since they’ll only have VLTs, they won’t be fully competitive with, say, Hollywood Toledo or underachieving Hollywood Columbus. But remember that MTR Gaming has been kicking Penn’s ass in Columbus with VLT-only Scioto Downs, so these are not second-class facilities by definition. At least Rock Gaming Caesars had the perspicacity to negotiate a sweetheart provision with Ohio that enables it to move ThistleDown Racino to near Akron if it bombs in the Cleveland market.

Station Casinos may be taking a premature victory lap in the online-poker war. Caesars Entertainment has the World Series of Poker … you might have heard of it? Station has — wait for it — Antonio Esfandiari and the Ultimate Poker logo he’s wearing during WSOP play. Oh, Gary Loveman must be just quaking in terror. (Good news for MGM Resorts International and Boyd Gaming … Bwin.party is reversing CEO Norbert Teufelberger‘s strangely defeatist ‘not in Nevada‘ stance toward casino licensing. Now Boyd and MGM have a chance to play catch-up before Caesars Interactive and Ultimate Poker gain prohibitively large market share.)

Neil Bluhm has effectively taken himself out of the running for Massachusetts‘ lone slot parlor. His Rush Street Gaming has scrapped a planned hotel, greatly diminishing civic support. Worcester power brokers don’t sound all that broken up about the matter.

After years of trying, the Nevada casino industry still can’t get a gross-receipts tax through Carson City, meaning it must continue to carry an inordinate share of the responsibility for keeping the lights burning in the Silver State. However, it otherwise swept the board in the most recent Lege. Over the next two years — and by unanimous vote — Dotty’s gray-market slot arcades are going to have to either close up shop or come into conformity with the definition of “tavern.” The relative handful of bars that offer sports-betting kiosks saw their interests crushed like a bug by assemblymen and senators submissive to Big Gaming. (They know whose hand to lick.) And it looks like comped meals will continue to be tax-free, a win for casinos, players and employees alike.

Slip sliding away. The heirs of Stanley Ho will receive a diminished empire when the ancient casino vizier goes to that big VIP room in the sky. SJM Holdings Ltd.’s market share fell to 23% last month, meaning that Sheldon Adelson is breathing down old Stan’s neck with 21% market share at Sands China. And don’t count out new powerhouse Galaxy Entertainment, which has gone from perpetual also-ran status to 18% of the market. Top that off with a record $3.7 billion in play and everyone made out like bandits. Also, we may now have the explanation for some cryptic comments made last week by Las Vegas Sands about changes to its Macao table game repertory.

Newly relocated operator Nevada Gold is making some big noises about being a buyer now that it’s relocated to Las Vegas. But I look at its small revenue base and relatively puny asset portfolio, and don’t plan on waiting up nights for Nevada Gold to cut a big deal.