Something Old, Something New, Something Broken, Something Blue: Part 2

Some Things Are Broken

2015 was a bad year for a few places.  We’ll do our best to be kind:

• Isle of Capri closed its Natchez, Mississippi casino in November. 
• Harrah’s Louisiana Downs is broken. After a few years of significant drops in gaming revenues, 2015 took another dive with a whopping 25.9% drop. Our visits to the racetrack and casino found the main restaurant operating limited hours, the facility looking shabby and poor crowds at the races and casino. This place needs a new owner.
• The Tunica Roadhouse was even more disappointing. Our room had dresser drawers that wouldn’t close or couldn’t close, the window curtain was falling down, the floor had a three-foot round stain (hopefully not bullet wound related). That’s for starters. We arrived at about 9:00 pm, no food service. Had a discussion with the hotel registration person who said she would contact the manager. No call. 
• I think greyhound racing is broken. Each visit to a greyhound racino leaves me feeing worse than the last. The dogs just look sad, perhaps even mistreated, although I believe the dog owners and race track owners and operators do care and do their best to care for the animals. Most greyhound racino owners and operators want to de-couple, allow the casino to stay, get rid of the dogs.

Some Things Blue

These things are not yet or not quite broken, we'll call them blue.

• Tunica, Mississippi casinos are blue. Nearly every month in the past two years the gaming revenue numbers for the Mississippi River Counties are down, nearly every month the Gulf Coast Counties revenues are up. Tunica area has 9 of the 16R River Counties Casinos and carries the bulk of the downside. Billions of dollars have been spent on the Mississippi Gulf Coast Counties plus the Louisiana Gulf Coast. None has been invested in new facilities in Tunica. In addition, the Southland Park Racetrack and Casino in West Memphis Arkansas 40 miles north of Tunica has expanded its casino facility and has grown revenues tremendously over the past two years. Tunica is not broken, but it is blue.
• Harrah’s New Orleans is blue with 2015 gaming revenues down $33.8 million, 9.88% for the year due largely, we believe, to the smoking ban in New Orleans. It’s still a great facility and still generated over $300,000,000 in gaming revenues in 2015, but it is unfortunately blue.
• A major source of Louisiana casino and racino revenues comes from persons working in the oil sector. The Texas and Louisiana oil sector is blue.  Low oil prices have caused a number of problems for this area and it likely will affect gaming revenues more in 2016 than 2015.  We will provide a detailed note on this later this quarter, but suffice to say, thousands of jobs have been lost plus hundreds of companies have closed their doors.  Hundreds of loans to these companies are in default. A major source of gaming revenues from oil sector employees has likely been lost. These potential gaming revenues from oil sector employees could seriously damage casinos and racinos in the Louisiana markets.

Something Old, Something New, Something Broken, Something Blue: Part 1

Something Old, Something New

Good News! Something New is the largest category. Bad News! There is a lot of Old, Broken and Blue News too!

Our notes and comments are based on our ongoing research including annual visits to each of the 74 casinos/racinos in the nine southeastern states.  Some of the revenue numbers are good, a few are very good.  Some of the revenue numbers are not so good, some are bad and very bad.  So, here goes:

Some Things Old – After visiting casinos and racinos for the past three years, first-hand views tell us a lot. Yogi Berra summed it up well: “You can observe a lot by just watching.”  What is becoming old at a number of facilities is the same old slot machines with worn gaming floor carpets, grumpy looking employees, being greeted with a grunt, table dealers with an empty table standing with their arms crossed…nothing cheerful. This gets old to patrons and it shows on their faces too. Then there’s the food: nothing has changed except the prices, and yes, the prices are up. We’ll get into a few good examples of food and drinks pricing and quality along with some sketchy rooms in the Broken and Blue sections of this note. Far too many of the casinos and racinos we visited last year gave the appearance of Some Things Old. 

Some Things New – We’re delighted to point out the New. Many of the older facilities had a cheerful staff, great crowds enjoying their visit to the gaming floors, restaurants and hotels. In a number of cases this was an upgrade. In addition to the operations displaying a good attitude toward the facility and patrons, the number and quality of new facilities and additions was a good surprise. New facilities and major expansions in 2015 include:

• Harrah’s Cherokee Valley River Casino Hotel in Murphy, North Carolina which opened in September. The complex includes a 300-room hotel, five food areas, and a gaming floor with 1,000 slots and 100 table games. Murphy, North Carolina is in the western N.C. area near the Great Smokey Mountains National Park.
• The Scarlet Pearl in D’Iberville, Mississippi opened for business in December. This facility includes a 300-room hotel including suites and penthouse rooms, six food and bar areas, a gaming area with 1,300 slots and 45 table games and a poker room. It features a 36-hole miniature gold the grounds. The complex sits on the waterfront in the Biloxi Back Bay area.
• The Island View Casino Resort in Gulfport, Mississippi added an 18 story beach front tower hotel which opened in April. The new addition includes 405 rooms, a spa, gulf-front pool area and food areas including a beach grill and other casual dining.  
• The Silver Slipper Casino and Hotel at Bay St. Louis, Mississippi opened its new 90-room Gulf front hotel in May.
• Beau Rivage owners added to their complex in Biloxi, Mississippi with a 5,000 seat MGM baseball park in June. The new facility directly across the boulevard from Beau Rivage, is home to the Biloxi Shuckers, a AA Southern League team.
• Boomtown, New Orleans, Louisiana opened their new 120-room hotel in June adjacent to their riverboat casino facility.
• Arkansas – Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs and Southland Park each expanded its gaming facility to include new food areas along with table games and poker rooms in early 2015.
• The Seminole Tribe of Florida Immokalee facility opened its new 90-room hotel and expanded the food and gaming areas in mid-2015.

We also saw significant changes in several of the gaming floor make-up, including new slots and slot arrangements, more table games and reconfigurations of slots and tables on gaming floors.

Some things new had a very good year in Southeastern gaming!