Wild, wild East; Fertitta remembered

Imagine a Las Vegas in which to play you were required to lay out at least $65 … and where the average minimum bet was $270, maybe even $320. You’d have Macao,
whose players dwarf Vegas’ ($20 average minimum bet) and even Singapore ($50) in their audacity. The most tight-fisted punters, by the way, are those in the Philippines, where the average minimum wager is just $10, although glamorous new casinos may have a pursestring-loosening effect.

Of course, such boldness has its downside. “It might be fun to lose $1,000 in two to three hours, but it is definitely not enjoyable to lose your entire gaming budget in one hand of Baccarat,” says CSLA research chief Aaron Fischer.  And baccarat is the name of the game there, comprising 91% of play, with slots a mere 4% and all other games divvying up the remaining 5%. The Strip’s fortunes also rise and fall with baccarat, but nowhere near this extent. With hotel-room capacity scheduled to increase another 70% over the next two years or so, mass-market play is going to have to come through in a big way.

* Today’s Las Vegas Review-Journal contains a remembrance of Frank Fertitta Jr., marketing genius and founder of Station Casinos, which has grown beyond anything he could have managed. There’s a somewhat melancholy undertone to the saga, in that from 1976, when he founded what is now Palace Station until his retirement in 1993 (Boulder Station having commenced construction), the elder Fertitta wrote a fairly narrow chapter in Station’s history. It was his sons who were responsible for everything — good, bad and historic — that followed.

However, what Frank III and Lorenzo lacked was their father’s innate financial conservatism, which saw the company through its early decades. In the wake of a catastrophic LBO, however, that cost-conscious sensibility has returned and sound business fundamentals now rule the day. One might say the spirit of Frank Sr. is back in the building.

* Although it’s been provisionally operational for months, South Point‘s online-gambling portal, Real Gaming is now the real deal, having been approved by the Nevada Gaming Commission. Real Gaming is somewhat unusual in that relies on a proprietary platform rather than teaming with an affiliate. The poker-only site joins Station Casinos’ Ultimate Gaming and Caesars Entertainment‘s World Series of Poker site in vying for Nevada players. The WGC meeting also saw Warner Gaming get the go-ahead to rebaptize the Horizon in Lake Tahoe with eh Hard Rock brand. Anything would be a step up for the Horizon and that’s a big one.