Penn talks turkey; Celebrity brawl at Aria

Next week Penn National Gaming turns on the Marquee Rewards spigot at the Tropicana Las Vegas. Given some of management’s recent disclosures, it won’t come a day too soon: 85% of Penn’s customer base comes to Sin City but stays elsewhere. Casino players only represent 10% of the Trop’s guest pool, with 45% of room nights filled through online travel agencies. Penn wants to even out that equation to the point where it’s filling 40-50% of rooms with Marquee Rewards customers. Given Penn players’ allergy to the Trop, it then comes as no surprising that it’s got the lowest-grossing gaming floor in the Penn portfolio.

Despite negative headlines in Massachusetts, Penn says it is seeing a 20% return on investment (impressive in gaming) from Plainridge Park. Ownership may not be paying sufficiently close attention to the Mashpee Wampanoag‘s activities in Taunton, as it continues to believe meaningful competition (read: Wynn Boston Harbor) is three years away. The Mashpee Wamps intend to have a casino up and running next year. Penn has signed 175,000 Marquee Rewards players “and continues to experience a healthy rate of weekly new signups,” according to Deutsche Bank analyst Carlo Santarelli. The company is also spiffing up Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races, in anticipation of MGM National Harbor. It expects it will take a worse hit than it did (7%) from Horseshoe Baltimore, but not the 20% wallop it got from Maryland Live.

Penn’s Mahoning Valley racino is still the company’s breakout performer. Even after adding 70 more VLTs, slot win continues to exceed $300/slot/day. The company is also sanguine about the tax situation in Ohio, Gov. John Kasich (R) having promised no increased levies for seven years.

* Maybe the Easter Bunny really did make off with business that might otherwise have gone to casinos, as Wall Street analysts theorize. The second state to have experience a ‘meh’ March is Missouri, up slightly less than 1%. Results were mostly negative at the outlying casinos, with Affinity Gaming‘s Mark Twain down 8% but Lady Luck Caruthersville up 17.5%. Other than Ameristar St. Charles losing market share (-2%) to Hollywood Casino St. Louis (up 4%), the news from St. Louis was mostly good. River City rose 2% and Lumiere Place — while still a distant fourth — continues on the comeback trail, up 6%.

Both Penn and Pinnacle Entertainment had a good month in Kansas City, taking market share from Harrah’s North Kansas City (-3.5%) and Isle of Capri Kansas City (-4%). Ameristar Kansas City grew revenue 2%, while Penn’s Argosy Riverside was up 2.5%. “Overall Missouri visitation was down 5.2% y/y, while spend per visitor was up 6.5% for the month,” records Santarelli, whose forecasts for Pinnacle and Penn proved overly optimistic.

* Whether or not you believe in the Easter Bunny Theory for March gaming revenues, Indiana also saw fewer customers come aboard (-6%) but much higher spending per patron (+9%). Most casino companies’ revenue was flattish, excepting a 4% gain by Caesars Entertainment. Among those seeing their revenue pancake were Boyd Gaming‘s Blue Chip, Penn’s Hollywood Casino Lawrenceburg, Hoosier Park and Majestic Star I. (By contrast, Majestic Star II was up 3%. Did the house just have better luck?) Eye-opening gains were posted by Horseshoe Southern Indiana, vaulting 30% on a $22.5 million gross and Tropicana Evansville, which gained 13% on an $11 million gross. The dollar leader in the state was, no surprise, Horseshoe Hammond, grossing $39 million despite a 7% slippage in business. The disappointment was Belterra, still hurting from Ohio competition, down 11%. In other results, Ameristar East Chicago ($22 million) was up 7%, as was French Lick Resort, while low-grossing (less than $5 million) Rising Sun managed 6% improvement. Rounding out the Hoosier State take was Indiana Downs, grossing $24 million, up 5% and good enough for a second-place finish.

Washed-up rocker Vince Neil continues to be bad news for Las Vegas. He’s been accused of assaulting a woman who did no more than ask Neil pal Nicolas Cage for an autograph, setting off an altercation. It was also a bad day for the English language, as the Daily Mail reported that Aria security attempted to “diffuse” the violence, which would be to “spread or cause to spread over a wide area or among a large number of people.” I’m pretty sure the Aria staffers were trying defuse the unpleasantness, as seen in the video clip. Neil was described as looking “unsteady and confused,” although Cage looks like he’s had a few too many, too. “Neil has a long history with the law,” reports the Daily Mail, which is an understatement of cosmic proportions.