
Vegas’ advertising campaigns positioning the populous city as hip and occurring appear to be working, based on 2013 revenue tallies
This has been awhile since Las Vegas could actually post any extremely positive news about profits, but 2013 has been a watershed year economically for las vegas. Figures posted end-of-year by the Nevada Gaming Control Board show a whopping 22.6 percent spike in gaming revenues for the month of November, following a significantly flat October, a reality that guarantees showing exemplary year-end overall numbers once compiled.
Second Best of the Year
Turns out November was the second best of the year for Las Vegas Strip properties. Baccarat took house the gold literally with a 94 percent hike, while dining table games also pulled a 53.5 percent jump to their weight, compared to 2012. Certainly nobody is ripping out slot machines, but it appears that old-school gambling is the moneymaker these full days in the town of Neon.
Statewide, the image had been also a good one. A bump of 11.9 percent compared to the year prior across Nevada, casinos took in $875.9 million in November. And much more encouraging, it absolutely was the third month-to-month hike during the past four months.
Las Vegas’ uber-successful advertising campaign of being the coolest, hippest, swag-est place to be on earth is apparently working when it comes to gambling since well; the Strip earned $529.4 million in November overall, largely from table games, which includes popular classics such as craps, blackjack, roulette, poker and, of course, baccarat a particularly popular basic with the all-important high-roller quotient that is asian.
Whale of a November
Apparently, Las Vegas’ Asian whale and junket agents are earning their baccarat that is keep; wagering up 90.5 percent versus 2012’s numbers in November. Broken out separately because it’s this type of high-ticket and lucrative game for the household were baccarat intakes, which hit $129 million. Table games general brought in $174.7 million, minus baccarat.
‘We believe these results bode positively for bigger Strip operators with significant baccarat volumes, but note the core Las Vegas market that is mass soft with non-baccarat mass volumes down 9.4 %,’ said Wells Fargo Securities gaming analyst Cameron McKnight.
International visitors had been also responsible for the upswing, McKnight told investors. He added that Wynn Resorts Ltd., Las Vegas Sands Corp. and MGM Resorts International all saw the best of that angle in November.
November’s activities guide figures were no slouch either as the holidays approached, with a $14.3 million intake when compared with a loss of $400,000 during the same time final year.
Also boosting the bottom line in November in the Strip: an Ultimate Fighting Championship occasion, and one Saturday that is extra on calendar, compared to 2012. A move into the heart of this month by the 140,000-attendee Automotive Aftermarket Industry Week convention versus bridging October/November the year before also made a factor in the month’s tallies.
‘November’s Strip strength was anticipated, offered commentary from companies, but not to the degree,’ noted Macquarie Securities gaming analyst Chad Beynon while addressing investors.
Although November was a kingpin thirty days for Sin City, it was February 2013 the thirty days that encompasses the extremely lucrative Chinese New Year that introduced the absolute most revenues for Las Vegas, with a 31.2 percent hop on the Strip alone. Statewide in Nevada, February saw a 15.1 percent increase in video gaming profits whenever contrasted to 2012.
PokerStars Requires a Snipe at Bungled Atlantic Club Closure
PokerStars is vowing to find an Internet home in 2014, after being rejected by Nevada and nj-new Jersey this past year.
You have to control it to PokerStars the most-rejected poker that is online in America these days, labeled in Nevada and New Jersey as a ‘bad actor’ and told to go sit within the corner for a couple years they don’t say perish easily. And now the company’s professionals are saying, stand back, America, we’re coming we may have gotten from regulators for you in 2014, no matter how many slaps in the face.
You have not Heard the final from Us
A strong presence and positive financial impact in the American market in 2014, whether that is in nj-new jersey or another state seeking the advantages of being home up to a world-class online video gaming company. at least that’s the term from ubiquitous PokerStars corporate communications chief Eric Hollreiser, who’s noted in an end-of-year weblog that their company promises to ‘…have’
Those in-your-face comments are a definite not-very-subtle commentary on PokerStars’ conversations with New York State lawmakers. Since brand New Jersey regulators told PokerStars to take a seat on the sidelines for at least the next two years and Nevada has nixed suitability for the Internet poker giant for at the least four more the company has brought the tac that should you can’t beat ‘em, simply go elsewhere. And with the Empire State’s recent approval of major land gaming expansion, it just appeared like a good time to casually mention that adding online poker to that mix could be a really lucrative add-on, particularly provided New York City’s 8.33 million prospective player base through the get-go.
Getting in the Lobby
And by ‘casually mention,’ we really mean lobby the bejesus away from legislators. To be fair, that process began well before the Garden State told PokerStars they are able to not pass suitability checks for the following two years. And also with that suspension, if PokerStars’ founder Isai Scheinberg’s federal charges get reconfigured in any way, the situation that is whole possibly change. The brand New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement has referred to Scheinberg’s charges as ‘unresolved’, despite the elder having reportedly written checks for more than one billions bucks to the Department of Justice in order to avoid prosecution. Although PokerStars’s present leader Mark Scheinberg who takes place to be Scheinberg’s son has said his business has had no dealings with the kingpin that is former regulatory investigations allegedly found otherwise, causing them some concern.
Other issues addressed in the we blog included PokerStars’ parent company, Rational Group, and their efforts to shop for the Atlantic City. A long and drawn out connection that fundamentally ended with the casino likely to bankruptcy court, being snapped up by Caesars Entertainment and also the Tropicana for the fire sale combined cost of $23.4 million last month, could have made a number of the closing casino’s former owners wonder whatever they had been thinking when they at first pulled away from Rational’s deal; the business had initially invested $11 million into the casino, only to see that money go up in smoke when their deal fell through.
Hollreiser could not resist noting that the Atlantic Club closing which will take place mid-January ‘simply didn’t have to happen’; the shutdown shall leave some 650 union employees jobless, and with only a one-time $1,500 severance approved by the courts. Apparently the property’s 1,800 workers take unique once the casino closes its doors for good; a reality that might have been forestalled, according to Hollreiser, were it not for the ‘vulture-like management practices’ of the casino’s now ex-owners, who didn’t mind ‘[gambling] using their employees’ future.’
Bally Technologies Chief Counsel Retires as Company Forges Ahead
Bally Technologies’ Las Vegas headquarters; the business’s chief counsel for 17 yrs recently retired, adhering to a $1.3 billion SHFL acquisition.
Something that cannot be denied would be the fact that Las Vegas constantly has and continues to today set the benchmarks, trends and paradigms for how to run a gaming town. Also Macau which includes now far surpassed Las Vegas in terms of pure gambling profits still aspires to emulate Sin City’s nongaming moneymakers: things like expensive nightclubs, luxury retail, and five-star restaurants, not to ever free online slots indian dreaming point out so-called gentlemen’s clubs, entertainment and attractions that are special. And, needless to say, the casinos themselves have evolved exponentially over the decades, and all of that requires the careful design and planning of a few behind-the-scenes leaders who realize exactly what drives the market.
The Individuals Whom Make It All Happen
Some of those industry leaders people like Steve Wynn and Sheldon Adelson are highly visible, colorful figures in their own right. But some stay in the shadows behind the scenes, making them no less significant within the forward movement of the Las vegas, nevada gambling industry.
One such individual in that second category is Mark Lerner, the just-retired lawyer for Bally Technologies. After a 17-year profession with the slot-making giant, Lerner really can lay claim to actively taking part in how a casino industry has changed and developed during his tenure.
In order to produce gaming equipment in any particular jurisdiction, Bally must hold a gaming license there; something that when you have been following any of the sagas in Massachusetts as operators try to obtain one, is not any task that is easy. To be able to offer proper counsel that is legal the slots giant, Lerner additionally had to get licensed in hundreds of locales: 214, to be exact. On top of that, 80 percent of these areas need a renewal that is annual re-licensing.
That means 214+ individual suitability investigations that Lerner has had to endure; predicated on their own calculations, he says, ‘If you are doing the math, i am investigated some 2,000 or 3,000 times.’
This can be a man whom can not manage to have so much being a parking ticket on his background checks. Also it seems, he doesn’t have. Asked if detectives in all these thousands of checks ever developed even the slightest red flag, Lerner shrugs and says, ‘Apparently not. I’m pretty boring.’
Positioned Bally Technologies for SHFL Acquisition
Boring or not, Lerner has played a key place in taking the thing that was when called Alliance Gaming into its current position once the second-largest manufacturer of slots, gaming equipment and casino administration systems. Following a recent $1.3 billion buyout of SHFL entertainment (sic), Inc. formerly known as Shufflemaster as well as the creators regarding the zillion-dollar brainstorm concept of a machine that auto-shuffles cards in gambling enterprises Bally are now able to lay claim to seven split reporting divisions, and the reported (& most convenient, thinking about the purchase price) potential for some $1.3 billion in annual sales.
Much has changed in 17 years, head you. Whenever Lerner joined up with the business, they still had spinning reel slot machines; obviously, those are now a piece of history, with video-based reels. While the alterations in technology have actually largely driven the alterations in the gaming industry itself, according to Lerner.
‘When I began, we owned a dozen that is few,’ noted Lerner. ‘Today, the company has about a few hundred. Slot machines are technological marvels.’
While Lerner may be a ‘backstage’ kind of guy, Bally Technology CEO Ramesh Srinivasan credits the attorney’s ‘deep knowledge of gaming’ with much of the business’s meteoric rise to prominence within the casino game.