Good morning, and welcome to the Indy Gaming newsletter, a weekly have a look at gaming matters nationally and internationally and the way the events tie back to Nevada.
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Caesars Entertainment’s entrance into an expected heated process for the rights to operate a casino resort in Latest York City got here as somewhat of a surprise.
Last week, the corporate announced a partnership with SL Green Realty Corp. on a enterprise to develop Caesars Palace Times Square.
Eight months ago, nonetheless, Caesars CEO Tom Reeg said it was “extraordinarily unlikely” the corporate would enter the Latest York casino market.
“How do I answer this politely?” Reeg said on the casino operator’s fourth quarter conference call in February. He questioned the state’s “difficult” regulatory structure and the “extremely expensive” costs to acquire a license and develop a project.
But Reeg left the door open.
“If certainly one of those developers desires to discuss with a manager that brings 65 million (customer loyalty program) members and powerful brands, we would be very interested by having that discussion,” Reeg said on the time.
Enter SL Green.
Apart from stating that the partnership would come with the event of a Broadway Theater location to deal with a production of The Lion King, not much was revealed concerning the project. Caesars touted endorsements from Actor’s Equity labor union, the CEO of the restaurant group that owns Carmine’s, the top of Latest York Laborers’ Local 79, the CEO of Wyndham Hotels and a former Latest York City police commissioner.
In the course of the real estate investment trust’s third-quarter earnings conference call, SL Green CEO Mark Holliday said there wasn’t much to be revealed until Latest York releases the request for proposal (RFP) for the casino and developers can go over the terms.
“We’re exclusive with Caesars on this casino site, and we’re going to be putting each of our mutual best efforts behind making it occur,” Holliday said. He added that after the pandemic, “Times Square needs help and wishes to reboot itself. I believe we will rally around a casino and make that (an) economic engine.”
Within the Latest York state budget approved earlier this 12 months, a bit was put aside to supply for 3 downstate gaming licenses, which voters first approved in 2013. Lawmakers touted union jobs in addition to increased tourism and tax revenue and noted the RFP process would start in early 2023. While the bidding for every license will start at $500 million, analysts said the developments will top greater than $1 billion in construction and development costs.
Most observers imagine two of the licenses are destined for Resorts World and MGM Resorts International. The businesses already operate Latest York City-area casino facilities at two horse racing tracks that house slot machine-like video lottery terminals.
Resorts World Latest York City in Queens is attached to the Aqueduct Racetrack and MGM’s Empire Casino is a component of Yonkers Raceway, roughly 15 miles north of Manhattan.
Gaming industry advisor Brendan Bussmann, managing partner of Las Vegas B2 Global, said with two licenses all but spoken for, the gaming industry’s largest casino operators “will probably be circling in and around Manhattan.”
Wynn Resorts announced a partnership with Latest York-based Related Firms in September to hunt a gaming license for Western Yards at Hudson Yards. The placement is next to the Javits Center, certainly one of the busiest convention centers in the US that recently accomplished a $1.5 billion expansion.
Late Las Vegas Sands founder Sheldon Adelson had long desired to construct a Latest York City casino near the Javits Center. In 2019, the corporate brought in former Latest York Gov. David Paterson in an unsuccessful effort to push up the event timeline.
Last week, Las Vegas Sands CEO Rob Goldstein said the corporate has a Latest York property in mind and is putting a bid together.
“We have been focused available on the market for a few years and we’re very bullish on Latest York,” Goldstein said on the corporate’s third-quarter earnings call last week. “It’s tough because I believe there’s one available license. Hopefully, we’ve a bid that gets attention.”
It was reported in July that Latest York Mets owner Stephen Cohen and Sands were discussing a casino project near Citi Field, the team’s ballpark. However the Latest York Times reported last week that Cohen can be talking with Hard Rock International. Bally’s Corp. has also expressed interest in expanding to Latest York.
Bussmann expects the Latest York City license to turn into certainly one of the nation’s most costly integrated resorts developed outside of Las Vegas. As a comparison, Bally’s is spending $1.7 billion on an integrated resort in downtown Chicago.
“This becomes a race for who can best capture the addressable market by making a compelling, game-changing project that not only is a differentiator out there to those stakeholders but captures the local and tourist markets,” Bussmann said.
As Macau struggles, Sands’ balance sheet is on the back of its Singapore resort
One observer succinctly summed up the dilemma for Las Vegas Sands Corp., which sold its Strip holdings in February and is seeing little, if any, return on its billions of dollars of investments into Macau. Meanwhile, its only property in Singapore is carrying the corporate’s financial burden.
“Singapore is totally on fire because the country continues to rebound from the COVID pandemic while Macau continues to be an absolute disaster with zero visibility as to when there will probably be a cloth change of their harsh anti-COVID stance,” Stifel Financial gaming analyst Steven Wieczynski told investors in a research note after Las Vegas Sands released third-quarter results last week.
“Las Vegas Sands continues to placed on a great face and act as if all is well over in China while the Macau casino assets proceed to take the brunt of China’s ridiculous zero-case COVID policy,” Wieczynski added.
Within the quarter that ended Sept. 30, Sands said $756 million of its $1 billion in revenue got here from the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore.
On a conference call with analysts, Las Vegas Sands officials were somewhat mum on when Macau could return to profitability. In addition they didn’t wish to comment intimately on the continued Macau licensing renewal process — the corporate is certainly one of seven casino operators searching for certainly one of six 10-year gaming concessions.
They imagine the method will probably be concluded by the top of the 12 months.
“We’ve been working with the federal government closely, and a few rounds of dialogue have been held,” Sands China President Wilfred Wong said. “We’re waiting for the federal government notification (on) whether there will probably be one other next round of dialogue. The timetable stays the identical.”
Analysts imagine Las Vegas Sands will retain its license for five integrated resorts in Macau, which the corporate said it spent greater than $15 billion to develop over the past 20 years.
Analysts are unsure when Macau’s casino market will return to profitability. Prior to the $6.25 billion sale of the Venetian, Palazzo and Venetian Expo, Las Vegas Sands saw 72 percent of its pre-pandemic annual revenue ($12.12 billion in 2019) come from its Macau properties.
CBRE gaming analyst John DeCree told investors he wasn’t convinced Sands Macau will reach 2019 revenue levels even when the market fully reopens in 2023. He blames policy moves implemented by each Macau lawmakers and the federal government in Beijing.
“We still imagine the Macau recovery will remain elusive for many, if not all, of 2023,” DeCree told investors.
That sentiment is why Sands executives focused attention on Marina Bay Sands, the Singapore property that’s within the initial stages of a planned $3.3 billion expansion. It’s just certainly one of two casinos within the island nation.
The corporate is currently spending $1 billion to upgrade the two,000 hotel rooms and suites at Marina Bay Sands while adding several “premium segment-focused amenities,” CEO Rob Goldstein said.
The one issue with the upgrade is that as much as 500 of the property’s rooms are offline throughout the renovation.
When the Marina Bay expansion was first announced in 2019, Las Vegas Sands officials said the market needed additional hotel rooms. Sands President Patrick Dumont said the timing of development for a recent tower continues to be into consideration.
“As we make more progress on our work there, we’ll find a way to reveal further about where we’re headed,” Dumont said. “We’re very optimistic about it. We predict it really will speak to a really powerful a part of the market.”
Monarch hopes Atlantis plans has the identical effect as Colorado expansion
If it worked in Black Hawk, Colorado, why not Reno?
Earlier this 12 months, Northern Nevada-based Monarch Casinos accomplished a $442 million expansion to its Monarch Casino Resort Spa in Black Hawk and the advantages showed up on the corporate’s third-quarter earnings.
Revenues for the two-casino company grew almost 20 percent within the three-month period to $134 million, which led to a 31 percent increase in money flow. Monarch doesn’t break out results between the Black Hawk casino and the corporate’s Atlantis in Reno.
But analysts credited the Colorado property within the mountain community 45 minutes from Denver, which saw its casino double in size and open a 516-room hotel tower.
“Clearly, the ramp-up at Black Hawk has been more robust and rapid than we had originally anticipated,” Macquarie Securities gaming analyst Chad Beynon wrote in a research note. “There’s more room to grow further with the brand new Black Hawk amenities attracting a recent caliber of player not seen in an extended time.”
While not committing to creating the identical financial investment into the Atlantis, Monarch CEO John Farahi said the corporate plans to renovate the hotel rooms at a second Atlantis tower, following the upgrades of an older tower accomplished this spring.
The corporate didn’t reveal costs for the hotel renovations, but Farahi said the guest response to upgrades, “has been very positive.” He also said Black Hawk has “an extended runway ahead to totally unlock its potential.”
Truist Securities gaming analyst Barry Jonas suggested Monarch’s share of the Reno market could expand through the hotel renovations and an ongoing upgrade of the property’s retail space.
“Management has already seen some increased return on investment following its projects to date and stays confident that continued investment will further enhance Atlantis’s positioning out there,” Jonas told investors in a research note.
A day after the quarterly earnings announcement, Monarch’s stock jumped greater than 14 percent on the Nasdaq National Market.
Stifel Financial gaming analyst Jeffrey Stantial told investors Monarch was “comparatively well positioned given economic tailwinds” in each the Denver area and Reno.
Slot developer Joe Kaminkow takes on an expanded role with Aristocrat
Joe Kaminkow is a member of two casino industry-related halls of fame and holds greater than 130 patents for various slot machine designs and networks. His fingerprints are on greater than 1,500 games across multiple gaming formats and markets.
Retirement – and even slowing down – will not be words present in Kaminkow’s vocabulary.
Just ahead of the Global Gaming Expo, Aristocrat Gaming said Kaminkow would tackle an expanded role as the corporate’s chief innovation officer. He joined Aristocrat in 2013 as a senior vice chairman of gaming development.
“We’re delighted that somebody of Joe’s caliber will probably be working full-time across the corporate to champion innovation, helping us to further penetrate growth opportunities and develop much more outstanding talent inside our business,” Aristocrat Gaming CEO Hector Fernandez said in a press release.
Kaminkow led slot machine development teams at International Gaming Technology within the Nineteen Eighties and Nineteen Nineties, creating greater than 1,000 different slot machines based on popular culture and entertainment, including “Wheel of Fortune,” which stays certainly one of the casino industry’s hottest products.
He also has designed greater than 100 different pinball machines, which earned him a spot within the Pinball Hall of Fame. He was a 2018 inductee into the American Gaming Association’s Gaming Hall of Fame and was the initial inductee to Eilers & Krejcik Gaming’s Slot Hall of Fame that very same 12 months.
After leaving IGT, Kaminkow took a transient hiatus from gaming.
“Time away allowed me to catch my breath and gain a greater perspective,” Kaminkow said in a 2013 interview. “Sometimes you grind yourself into the trees and you’ll be able to’t see the forest.”
Before joining Aristocrat, Kaminkow co-founded Spooky Cool Labs, a Chicago-based design studio that created social games for the web. He sold the studio to social gaming giant Zynga, where he later served as chief creative officer.
Kaminkow will work with Aristocrat’s teams within the slot machine division, social games area and the corporate’s real money online gaming business.
MSG Sphere taps former Allegiant executive to oversee $1.9B project
The $1.9 billion MSG Sphere is a 12 months from opening behind the Venetian resort, however the entertainment attraction now has a general manager.
Latest York-based Madison Square Garden Entertainment hired Raul Gutierrez away from Allegiant Stadium to oversee the general operations of the Sphere, which is anticipated to be open by November 2023.
Gutierrez was most recently vice chairman of operations at Allegiant. He previously held an operations position at T-Mobile Arena, and prior to his roles in Las Vegas, held operations positions with Barclays Center in Brooklyn and BBVA Compass Stadium in Houston.
“Throughout my profession, I even have focused on delivering exceptional experiences for guests, but the chance to be a part of redefining the venue experience with MSG Sphere is really thrilling,” Gutierrez said in a press release.
MSG Sphere, featuring a 580,000-square-foot outdoor LED screen surrounding the spherical structure, can have 17,500 seats with a standing-room capability of 20,000 for entertainment performances, concert residences and sporting events comparable to boxing.
A 160,000-foot interior LED screen will surround audiences. MSG Sphere can even include 23 luxury suites and a 5.7 million-cubic-feet grand entry within the major atrium.
The Sphere is under development on 19 acres across Koval Drive from the Venetian, which will probably be connected to the venue through a covered pedestrian overpass.
Quotable
Via press release from Sightline Payments
Cashless gaming proponent Sightline Payments has accomplished a round of funding from J.P. Morgan Payments. Privately held Sightline didn’t disclose the quantity raised, but said the corporate would work with the investment bank to develop an “omnichannel solution” for cashless wagering at land-based casinos and with online gaming corporations.
“We’re confident that a strategic relationship with J.P. Morgan Payments will allow us to deliver a singular mobile user experience for those gaming industry patrons and power the digital transformation for gaming operators.”
– Omer Sattar co-CEO, Sightline Payments
Via press release from Californians for Community Safety, Equality, and Reinvestment
The tribal coalition, which incorporates Palms Casino Resort owner San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, was searching for to qualify a ballot query in 2024 that might allow California’s Indian casinos to supply mobile sports wagering. A spokesman said the measure fell in need of the signature threshold, primarily since the group’s attention was focused on killing Proposition 27, a mobile sports betting query on next month’s ballot that’s backed by DraftKings, FanDuel and other online sports betting operators.
“While we imagine an age-verified tribal measure represents the most effective path forward for online sports wagering for California, its tribes, residents and communities, we made a strategic decision this 12 months to pay attention our full resources on defeating Proposition 27.”
– Roger Salazar, spokesman for the coalition
