A tale of three casinos; Explosive night at Monte Carlo

But first … put this in the ‘Told Ya So’ File. The flim-flam man can now resume his fiduciary duties to Trump Entertainment Resorts and doing what he does best: Making delusional claims about his net worth.

Three Vegas casinos reported quarterly results at the tail end of last week and the results might be described as the good, the bad and the troubling.

The good: While a $9 million loss might not seem like good news for the Tropicana Las Vegas, all the monetary trends are good. The $17 net revenue represents a 28% increase from early last year. While still a work in progress, the Trop’s much-ballyhooed ‘South Beach’ retheming — plus the fact that the place just looks cleaner — is clearly paying dividends, validating Onex Corp.’s purchase and CEO Alex Yemenidjian‘s vision for a rejuvenated Trop. Room and F&B revs were up 51% apiece, reflective of new product in both departments.

A 12% boost in casino income might not seem so impressive by comparison. But consider: Casino revenue ($8 million) led all departments and represented 41% of the overall picture. Remember that figure.

The bad: New management is still finding its feet at the Riviera (and today’s demise of the Sahara should add a few room nights to the ledger). So it deserves a mulligan or two. Revenue is flat from early 2010, so that could be worse, and onerous interest payments that long handcuffed Riviera Holdings have been shed. But, were it not for that debt-servicing relief, losses would have increased 1Q11 to $6.1 million from last year’s $4.5 million. So turnaround is still a ways off.

Casino winnings were up 3% and a boost in ADRs made up for lower occupancy (81%), to the point where room revenues outpaced casino ones to the tune of 300 grand. Not a disastrous metric but a worrisome one. In Colorado, like so many operators, Riviera is discovering that the Great Recession > looser rules, with revenue 3% off.

The troubling: OK, so that Fate-tempting Lauryn Hill gig came off without a hitch. And while both the revenue and the first-quarter loss ($57 million) at Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas dwarf those of the Trop and Riv combined, that’s the issue. A strong nightlife component and restaurant product put F&B ($58 million) out in front of all other departments by a country mile. Rooms (86% full) generated $34 million and the casino contributed $31 million.

That’s right, 25% of the total. Management didn’t make any excuses about getting hit hard by high rollers and, even if they had, it’d still be a spectacular underperformance in Las Vegas‘ bread-and-butter revenue stream. There was a (pre-Morgans Hotel Group) time when the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino was getting only 1/3 of its cash flow from the gaming floor — and that was considered an outlier.

If the Cosmo’s splashy casino floor doesn’t start pulling its weight, Steve Wynn‘s dire predictions about Deutsche Bank‘s $4 billion investment being a total writeoff may start coming true. Bellagio did $251 million in 1Q11 and even with a less attention-getting array of amenities Aria still pulled in $225 million, compared to Cosmo’s underwhelming $105 million. No EBITDA figure was busted out but, at the present revenues, ROI prospects look bleak.

Not again!

As the Sahara limps toward an undignified death, darned if the Monte Carlo didn’t go and steal what little thunder remained. An electrical explosion near the ill-starred casino temporarily closed I-15, and darkened the exteriors of Vdara and Aria. (No need for the last person leaving Vdara to turn out the lights.) Scary!