Vegas’ marketing campaigns positioning the city as hip and occurring appear to be working, based on 2013 income tallies
It’s been awhile since Las Vegas could really publish any extremely news that is positive profits, but 2013 appears to have been a watershed year financially for Sin City. Numbers 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, adhering to a significantly flat October, a truth that promises showing exceptional year-end overall figures once compiled.
Second Best of the 12 Months
Turns out was the second best of the year for Las Vegas Strip properties november. Baccarat took home the gold literally with a 94 percent hike, while dining table games also pulled their weight with a 53.5 per cent jump, compared to 2012. Certainly no body is ripping down slot machines, but it appears that old-school gambling is the moneymaker these full days in the town of Neon.
Statewide, the picture was also a positive 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 had been the third month-to-month hike during days gone by four months.
Las Vegas’ uber-successful marketing campaign of being the coolest, hippest, swag-est place to be on the planet seems to be working when it comes to gambling as well; the Strip earned $529.4 million in November overall, largely from table games, which includes popular classics such as for example craps, blackjack, roulette, poker and, of course, baccarat an especially popular staple with the all-important Asian high-roller quotient.
Whale of a November
Apparently, Las Vegas’ Asian whale and junket agents are earning their keep; baccarat wagering was up 90.5 percent versus 2012’s numbers in November. Broken out separately because it is this kind of high-ticket and game that is lucrative the household were baccarat intakes, which hit $129 million. Table games general brought in $174.7 million, minus baccarat.
‘We believe these outcomes bode positively for larger Strip operators with significant baccarat volumes, but note the core Las Vegas mass market remains soft with non-baccarat mass volumes down 9.4 %,’ said Wells Fargo Securities gaming analyst Cameron McKnight.
Overseas visitors had been also accountable for the upswing, McKnight told investors. He added that Wynn Resorts Ltd., Las Vegas Sands Corp. and MGM Resorts International all saw the very best of that angle in November.
November’s activities guide figures were no slouch either as the holiday breaks approached, having a $14.3 million intake when compared with a loss of $400,000 during the same time year that is last.
Also boosting the bottom line in November regarding the Strip: an Ultimate Fighting Championship event, and one Saturday that is extra on calendar, contrasted to 2012. A move into the heart of this thirty days by the 140,000-attendee Automotive Aftermarket Industry Week convention versus bridging October/November the year before also made a difference that is significant the month’s tallies.
‘November’s Strip strength was anticipated, offered commentary from companies, but not to this degree,’ noted Macquarie Securities gaming analyst Chad Beynon while addressing investors.
Although November was a kingpin month for Sin City, it ended up being February 2013 the month that encompasses the very lucrative Chinese brand new Year that introduced the absolute most revenues for Las Vegas, with a 31.2 percent hop on the Strip alone. Statewide in Nevada, saw a 15.1 percent increase in gaming revenues when compared to 2012 february.
PokerStars Has a Snipe at Bungled Atlantic Club Closure
PokerStars is vowing to find an Internet home in 2014, after being rejected by Nevada and New Jersey last year.
You have to control it to PokerStars the most-rejected on-line poker operator in America these days, labeled in Nevada and New Jersey being a ‘bad actor’ and told to go stay within the corner for a few years they are doingn’t say die easily. And now the company’s executives 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 good economic impact into the American market in 2014, whether that is in nj-new jersey or another state seeking the benefits of being home up to a world-class online video gaming business. at least that’s the word from ubiquitous PokerStars corporate communications chief Eric Hollreiser, who’s noted in an end-of-year blog that their company promises to ‘…have’
Those in-your-face remarks are a not-very-subtle commentary on PokerStars’ conversations with New York State lawmakers. Since 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 net poker giant for at least four more the ongoing company has taken the tac that if you can’t beat ’em, simply go elsewhere. Along with the Empire State’s recent approval of major land gaming expansion, it just seemed like a good time to casually mention that adding online poker to that particular mix is actually a really lucrative add-on, particularly given New York City’s 8.33 million potential 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 started well before the Garden State told PokerStars they are able to not pass suitability checks for the following two years. As well as with that suspension, if PokerStars’ founder Isai Scheinberg’s federal costs get reconfigured in any way, the situation that is whole potentially alter. The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement has referred to Scheinberg’s fees as ‘unresolved’, despite the elder having reportedly written checks for longer than one billions dollars towards the Department of Justice to avoid prosecution. Although PokerStars’s current leader Mark Scheinberg who happens become Scheinberg’s son has stated their business has had no dealings with the previous kingpin, regulatory investigations allegedly found otherwise, causing them some concern.
Other issues addressed in the blog included PokerStars’ parent company, Rational Group, and their efforts to get the Atlantic City. A long and drawn out interaction that ultimately ended with the casino going to bankruptcy court, being snapped up by Caesars Entertainment and also the Tropicana for the fire sale combined price of $23.4 million last month, might have made some of the closing casino’s former owners wonder what they had been thinking if they at first pulled away from Rational’s deal; the company had originally invested $11 million into the casino, only to see that money go up in smoke when their deal fell through.
Hollreiser couldn’t resist noting that the Atlantic Club closing which will take place mid-January ‘simply didn’t have to happen’; the shutdown will leave some 650 union employees jobless, and with merely a one-time $1,500 severance approved by the courts. Apparently the property’s 1,800 workers are on 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 organization’s primary counsel for 17 yrs recently retired, following 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 exactly to run a gaming city. Also Macau that has now far surpassed Las Vegas when it comes to pure gambling revenues still aspires to emulate las vegas’s nongaming moneymakers: such things as expensive nightclubs, luxury shopping, and five-star restaurants, to not mention alleged gentlemen’s clubs, activity and attractions that are special. And, needless to say, the casinos themselves have evolved exponentially over the decades, and all of that requires the design that is careful planning of a few behind-the-scenes leaders who comprehend exactly what drives the market.
The People Who Make It All Happen
Some of those industry leaders people like Steve Wynn and Sheldon Adelson are very visible, colorful figures in their own right. But some sit in the shadows behind the scenes, making them no less significant within the forward motion of the nevada gambling industry.
One such person in that second category is Mark Lerner, the just-retired lawyer for Bally Technologies. After a career that is 17-year the slot-making giant, Lerner really can lay claim to actively participating in how a casino industry has changed and evolved during his tenure.
In purchase to provide gaming gear in any particular jurisdiction, Bally must hold a video gaming license there; something that when indian dreaming slots for iphone you yourself have been following any of this sagas in Massachusetts as operators try to obtain one, isn’t any easy task. So that you can offer proper a lawyer for the slots giant, Lerner also had to get licensed in hundreds of locales: 214, become exact. On top of that, 80 percent of these markets need a renewal that is annual re-licensing.
That means 214+ individual suitability investigations that Lerner has had to endure; centered on their own calculations, he states, ‘If you are doing the math, I’ve been investigated some 2,000 or 3,000 times.’
It is a man whom can’t afford to have so much as a parking ticket on his background checks. Also it seems, he doesn’t have any. Asked if detectives in all these thousands of checks ever came up with 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 position that is key taking what was when called Alliance Gaming into its current position because the second-largest manufacturer of slot machines, gaming gear and casino management systems. Adhering to a recent $1.3 billion buyout of SHFL entertainment (sic), Inc. formerly known as Shufflemaster and the creators of the zillion-dollar brainstorm concept of a machine that auto-shuffles cards in gambling enterprises Bally are now able to lay claim to seven separate reporting divisions, and the reported (& most convenient, considering the sale price) potential for some $1.3 billion in annual sales.
Much has changed in 17 years, head you. When Lerner joined the business, they nevertheless had reel that is spinning machines; obviously, those are actually an item of history, with video-based reels. Plus the noticeable changes in technology have largely driven the alterations in the video gaming industry itself, according to Lerner.
‘When I started, we owned a few dozen patents,’ noted Lerner. ‘Today, the company has about several hundred. Slot machines are technological marvels.’
While Lerner can be a ‘backstage’ kind of guy, Bally Technology CEO Ramesh Srinivasan credits the attorney’s ‘deep knowledge of gaming’ with a lot of the organization’s meteoric rise to prominence within the casino game.