Casino News
Classic Las Vegas Strip casino adds exciting adult entertainment
Las Vegas Strip hotel and casino operators are constantly seeking innovative attractions to lure visitors through their doors and onto the casino floor.
Guests have many options for daytime and nighttime entertainment on the Strip and its surrounding areas. Circus Circus hotel and casino is both a daytime and nighttime destination for families offering its Carnival Midway with arcade games and prizes which opens daily at 11 a.m. The Midway also surrounds a circus stage featuring free circus acts starting at 1:30 p.m. Of course, guests under 21 are not allowed on the Circus Circus casino floor.
For more relaxing daytime leisure, guests can lounge by the swimming pool or take in a game of golf. When the lights go down, plenty of evening entertainment is available as well.
Plenty of entertainment to choose from
Visitors might choose to see a magic act, such as magician and illusionist David Copperfield at MGM Grand Hotel and Casino or maybe Penn & Teller's magic, illusion and comedy act at the off-Strip Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino. Or maybe guests would prefer to take in one the five Cirque du Soleil shows in Vegas – The Beatles Love, Michael Jackson One, Mystère, O or Kà.
For those looking for big-name music acts, superstar singer Adele continues her "Weekends With Adele" residency at Caesars Entertainment's (CZR) - Get Free Report Colosseum at Caesars Palace for 32 more weekend shows from Jan. 19 through June 15, 2024.
Classic 1970s teen idol Donny Osmond has extended his residency beginning Jan. 23 and ending May 11, 2024, at Harrah's Showroom, and An Intimate Evening with Santana hits the stage at House of Blues Las Vegas Jan. 24-31 and Feb. 2-4.
Luxor opens adult playground on the Strip
A new attraction hits the Strip as Play Social Inc. on Jan. 18 opens its highly anticipated Play Playground, a 15,000 square-foot immersive play area featuring an array of interactive large-scale games emphasizing tactile skill, memory, puzzles and teamwork, at MGM Resorts International's (MGM) - Get Free Report Luxor Hotel and Casino. The first-of-its-kind Playground features over 20 games, two bars, VIP mezzanines and private event spaces.
The venue is different from a Dave & Buster's or Chuck E. Cheese, as it does not feature any arcade, virtual reality or augmented reality games. Players earn credits for winning at the immersive games that can be exchanged for prizes in the Prize Center, which is one aspect similar to the arcade-style restaurants. Play Playground is open for all ages by day and adults only by night. The play area's operator Play Social markets it as ideal for both families visiting with children or companies looking to host a unique outing, the company said in a statement.
The venue is open from noon to 12 a.m., Sunday through Thursday, and noon to 2 a.m., Friday and Saturday. Guests who are under 21 years old must exit Play Playground at 5 p.m. daily, but the 21 and over crowd can continue having fun at the venue until closing. Admission for guests under 21 is $34.50 and $39.50 for 21 and over, which includes a $2.50 service charge, according to the Playground's website.
Play Playground also offers a VIP Experience for $97.50, which includes all-day play, VIP lanyard and card, skip the line privilege, 24-hour re-entry, one commemorative cocktail, a commemorative hat or beanie and 15% off retail purchases. The service charge is included.
SkyCity Casino Brings Bingo into Its Safer Gambling Ecosystem
SkyCity Casino is betting on a new range of bingo games. With bingo caught up in digitization of gambling since the early noughties, the game has enjoyed a resurgence. Gone are the days when bingo was played exclusively by those in retirement age. Countless studies and surveys show that the average age of bingo players has decreased significantly.
We know that remote gaming revenue in the UK between April 2020 and March 2021 was £6.9 billion. Bingo is listed among the games tracked within the metric. With further statistics showing that the average age of online gamblers is between 35 and 54, we can say with confidence that bingo is not only popular with the masses but with a younger audience than before.
Moving in Step with Industry Trends
SkyCity Online Casino and bingo is a testament to this. The online gambling operator has long taken popular products and converted them into digital offerings. Casino games, including slots, blackjack, and roulette, got the ball rolling. From there, virtual sports betting games were added to the mix. Now, after reviewing the latest trends, bingo games, ranging from classic 90-ball to modern speed variants, will be available to desktop and mobile players. Perhaps the biggest benefit of making bingo available to online players is the ease with which safety controls can be implemented. The current trend permeating all areas of the online gambling industry in 2023 is safer gambling.
Changes to the UK’s Gambling Act have prompted a new wave of responsible gambling measures and financial checks. US states implementing their own online gambling laws are also harnessing the latest innovations to ensure players are not only within permitted locations but playing responsibly. SkyCity Casino has a long-standing commitment to customer care. As per its responsible gaming policies, customers in New Zealand must be 20 or older to use the site, and all new accounts must be verified. Once customers are verified, there are tools for tracking financial transactions and, if necessary, set deposit limits.
Land Based Casinos
What are Land Based Casinos?
Land based casinos are physical casino premises that are commonly known as brick and mortar casinos. The term is used to differentiate between casino venues and their online counterparts.Some casino brands operate a mix of land based and online casinos, while other brands have either one or the other. Land based casinos might just include the casino itself, or they might be combined with other services such as bars, restaurants and hotel rooms.
Land Based Casinos Explained
A land based casino is any gaming premises located in the real world, as opposed to online. Examples of famous land based casinos include Caesar's Palace in Vegas and the UK's Grosvenor Casino brand. There was a time when the 'land based casino' was just the 'casino', but the dawn of online gambling has brought a need to differentiate between the two things. Land based casinos are therefore any physical buildings in which gambling games are played.Casinos usually offer a range of different games, although some specialise in one type of game, such as slot games or roulette. Most land based casinos have additional services for players, including entertainment acts, bars and restaurants, and sometimes hotel rooms and suites. Players who spend a lot of time playing at land based casinos are likely to be rewarded with complimentary use of these casino services.While land based casinos are different from online casinos, there are physical casinos which only offer electronic games. These video poker and slot arcades are common in smaller casinos and might be an offshoot of a larger brand.Land based casinos can be found in towns and cities all over the world, although there are some cities, such as Las Vegas and Atlantic City, which specialise in hosting these venues and have large numbers of land based casinos in one place.
Real Estate - Casino Connection News
Managing Director of the Alea Consulting Group, Nicholas G. Colon delves deeper into this relatively new way of ensuring the long-term financial viability of land-based casinos
The casino gaming industry is one of the most dynamic sectors of business to work in. Gaming executives are engaged in a never-ending quest to find the magic formula that boosts their corporate earnings to the next level. Sometimes the speculations are glorious successes, while other times they’re horrific failures. And still other times, massive investments have to be made before the true extent of how bad an idea is can be revealed.
The newest approach that gaming companies are trying is using the real estate market to increase their revenues. Here I will give a brief overview on how the real estate revenue generation by casino gaming companies works and, the benefits and drawbacks associated with this method. Modern casinos are built as massive resorts often times covering scores of acreage of land. The property usage is divided into three major components, which are gaming, hotel and commercial uses.
The hotel part houses the guests, while gaming is reserved to games of chance; and then there is the commercial use of properties. While hotel and gaming uses are niche, the commercial uses of casino properties have almost limitless possibilities. Space for entertainment shows such as the Cirque Du Soleil are fixtures at all the MGM properties in Las Vegas. Many casinos also have five-star restaurants, with world-renowned chefs tailoring the menus, on the premises.
This also falls under the umbrella of commercial use.
The commercial use for a property that is the most prevalent in some of the newest casinos in Las Vegas and around the world is shopping malls. This trend was pioneered by Caesars Palace Forum Shops in Las Vegas that opened on New Year's Day 1992. In 1998 when the Bellagio opened, there was a section of the property allocated for a few high-end shopping boutiques.
In the early 2000s the Planet Hollywood property in Las Vegas opened and it included a large shopping mall that mirrored the Forum Shops at prices more affordable to the masses. When the City Center Complex opened in LasVegas in December of 2009, The Shops at Chrystals opened up as a part of the complex. It was owned by MGM and was the home of several high-end retail shops like Louis Vuitton and Prada. The trend of associating commercial space with casinos was in full swing by this time.
Caesers, Bellagio, Planet Hollywood and the ARIA resorts all retained ownership of the commercial space at their respected resorts. They would sign leases with various retail companies for periods of time as a means to generate additional revenue for the company. Every so often the leases would have to be renewed and, depending on the sales of the store, lease rates could be negotiated.
Sales made by a particular store were tied directly to the traffic rate of the property. A 30% occupancy rating at Caesars would reduce the traffic flow of patrons frequenting the Forum Shops thereby reducing the purchase conversion rate. In the financial downturn of 2008, the shop owners had tremendous leverage and were able to negotiate very favourable rates for extended periods of time. This leads us to a huge blunder made in this area by the LasVegas Sands Corporation.
CASTLES MADE OF SAND
During the worldwide financial crisis, the shops at the Venetian were having a lot of trouble getting any type of retailers to occupy their spaces on strictly leasing terms. This led the board to sell the various retail spaces outright, at favourable terms for the buyer. This had the effect of reassuring the purchaser because they were not tied to any long-term payments and they were able to instantly begin building equity from their purchase, which at the very least was acquired at a discounted rate.
With hindsight, it’s my opinion that the Venetian was not looking at the long term when it made this decision. The global financial crash of 2008 scared everybody, and as a quick, knee-jerk reaction the Sands wanted to get the red ink out of their books as quickly as possible.
As we moved beyond the financial crisis the recovery slowly started to take over, patrons began returning to Las Vegas as a vacation destination and companies were no longer sending minimal personnel to the various conventions held there. The stores that occupied the retail space started increasing their sales and the equity in the retail space started increasing dramatically. And because the Sands no longer owned the space they were unable to increase their revenue from lease rates.
The total revenue of the Venetian was not as high as similar properties because they were not making as much from their commercial leases. This forced the Venetian to squeeze the customer from other areas. The casino games that were being offered were set up so the casino’s hold percentage was higher than before.
Most of the slot machines were set to their highest hold percentages, many of the blackjack games on the main became 6:5 payouts, for a natural and, a triple zero roulette wheel was introduced on the main floor under the name Sands Roulette, this game gives the house nearly an 8% edge over the player. Prices of food went up dramatically and comps offered by casinos went down dramatically.
MOVING FORWARD
These types of decisions are much easier to make for casinos in this scenario because there are no other revenue streams to consider. When players are not burned out at the tables they often take that extra cash and purchase goods and services at the resort property. These include products from stores, meals from restaurants and tickets for shows.
For one player this is not a factor but for the millions of players that walk through a casino a year this is significant. Even if only a tiny fraction of the players spend money at the shops, restaurants and shows, it translates into millions of dollars in sales over the course of a year and causes the value of the leased property to go up. Another negative impact is that the casino can’t negotiate better rates for items that can be purchased with players comp points, because there is no financial incentive to do so.
In recent years almost all of the main resorts on the Las Vegas Blvd and downtown Las Vegas have started charging for parking, even to casino guests and players. They do not collect money from their patrons they merely lease out the parking structure for a term of several years to an operating company. The operating company then installs parking ticket machines, gates and payment machines. They merely collect the money over the years of the lease. Again here, gaming companies are thinking short-term and not realising the negative perception they are creating with their customers. Creating more and more cost barriers for a customer to get to your product has an overall negative impact on revenue.
As we can see from the cited examples, the casinos have been in the real estate business for decades. But because it was viewed as a 360-degree revenue stream the gaming company was utilising to feed the main profit centres of the resort, it wasn’t viewed that way.
We are seeing today gaming organisations partition a division of their company to strictly deal with revenue generating through real estate applications. In effect, they are selling off pieces of their company that feed other parts of their total revenue equation. The assertion here is that the money in hand that is used for reinvestment will exceed the revenue that would be attained from keeping the asset. But what it is doing is showing little faith in the management team and foreshadowing a market reduction. The resorts, at least in Las Vegas, have convinced themselves that they are convention-centred destinations and the companies attending the conventions are the ones footing the cost and not vacationers. This type of thinking turns gaming companies into a B2B operation rather than an entertainment industry. Will it work? Maybe. Operators have just recently come back to profitability, stopping nearly a decade trend of losses. And even so the profits were just marginal. So now it’s a waiting game to see how the markets will react.
Australia’s Crown Resorts issues warning over unauthorized use of brand in illegal gambling ads
Australia’s Crown Resorts has raised a public alert about fraudulent activities involving imposter social media accounts and misleading advertisements. The casino operator revealed that unauthorised entities are exploiting Crown’s name, logo, images, and other distinctive details to promote illegal online gambling platforms.
The company, in an official statement, requested the public to exercise caution when encountering such advertisements and advised them to rely solely on Crown’s official websites and social media channels for authentic news and promotions.
As reported in Inside Asian Gaming Crown Resorts emphasised that operating an online casino or offering casino-style games online is prohibited in Australia. The statement clarified that Crown does not engage in online casino operations or any form of online gambling. The company stated it would take legal action against individuals or groups organising illegal activities using the Crown brand or its subsidiaries.
Currently undergoing a comprehensive reform initiative, Crown Resorts is focused on revamping its resorts in Melbourne, Sydney, and Perth. This overhaul is part of its strategy to regain casino licenses following unfavourable inquiries conducted in all three states.
One of the recent reforms introduced by Crown involves implementing mandatory time and loss limits for patrons using electronic gaming machines at Crown Melbourne. This move aligns with recommendations from the Finkelstein Royal Commission, which found Crown unsuitable to retain its Victorian casino license. The license is under a two-year review overseen by a Special Manager, with a decision on Crown’s reform efforts expected in 2024. The company is navigating a critical phase as it seeks to address regulatory concerns and regain public trust.
US – Formula 1 helps drive Nevada to its second most profitable month in November - Januaary 2024
Nevada’s casinos enjoyed their second-highest win ever, fuelled by the excitement surrounding the return of Formula One racing, which boosted the Strip’s performance by 22.6 per cent.
Only July earlier in the year was more lucrative for casinos in Nevada meaning that the state smashed its personal best twice in 2023.
Across the state, casinos generated $1.37bn, an increase of 12.5 per cent rise from November 2022 with Formula One clearly playing its part in an increase in tourism with 3,292,800 visitors in November.
Michael Lawton, senior economic analyst, said: “The four-day period beginning on November 16th was extremely profitable for both gaming and non-gaming activity on the Las Vegas Strip with some properties estimating those days established all-time record levels of revenue. The event’s success was more evident at luxury properties where the Las Vegas Strip’s baccarat increase accounted for 78.6 per cent of the state’s growth this month. Additionally, the 25 licensees that are included in the $72m or over revenue range for annual gross gaming win on the Las Vegas Strip increased by $160m or 25.8 per cent compared to last November and accounted for over 100 per cent of the state’s entire increase for the month.”
The Strip’s games win came in at $410.1m, marking the third highest total in Nevada’s history, and up 61.9 per cent from last year. This increase was led by baccarat which generated $178.3m, up 208.7 per cent from last year.
The influx of tourist spend wasn’t felt everywhere across the state though with Downtown Las Vegas down two per cent with revenues of $81.1m.
The Boulder Strip was down 2.1 per cent to $83.3m whilst North Las Vegas secured a 0.61 per cent increase to $23m. North Lake Tahoe experienced an eight per cent fall as did South Lake Tahoe.
For the year so far, Nevada GGR are on track to set a new record with revenues up 4.1 per cent over the first 11 months of the record-breaking 2022. November also saw the 33rd consecutive month that the state generated revenues of more than $1bn with November’s revenue coming in higher than November 2019’s total by 46.6 per cent.
US – Billion dollar plus months are the new norm for Nevada but could the Strip soon hit the milestone too? - March 2023
The Las Vegas Strip’s best ever February helped push the state of Nevada to yet another billion dollar plus month, marking two years of consecutive $1bn plus months and begging the question; is this now the norm for Nevada?
The Strip, with 28 casinos, generated $712.4m in revenue, increasing from $599.1m in February 2022 with the State’s 441 casinos bringing in $1.24bn in February, marking an 11.2 per cent increase from February 2022.
Clark County casinos alone surpassed $1bn for the 10th straight month, with analsysts now asking if the Strip could generate the milestone on its own.
Michael Lawton, Senior Economic Analyst for the Control Board, believes that following 24 months of $1bn plus months for Nevada, the figure has become the norm.
He said: “I think after 24 consecutive months you could safely say it is [the norm]. Obviously there is a lot of economic uncertainty, however that uncertainty has not spilled over into the record gaming win amounts we have witnessed over the last two years. Clark County has recorded over $1 billion in 10 consecutive months and in 17 out of the last 24 months. The Strip in December of 2022 recorded a win amount of $814.2 million which was the all-time record for the market. I think there is interest if the Strip on its own could hit the billion-dollar amount.”
In February, Clark County’s gaming revenue accounted for 87.4 per cent of Nevada’s total win with the Strip having 57.6 per cent of the state’s total.
For the state as a whole, slot win increased by 7.6 per cent to $822.8m whilst tables increased 18.6 per cent to $102.5m. Nevada sportsbooks won $41.2m, increasing 33.5 per cent from last year’s February, although the amiount staked was down 15.6 per cent to $659.4m.
Brendan Bussmann, Analyst at B Global, believes thee is still space for more revenue growth.
“We still do not have some of the foreign guests back, and the business customer is still returning, which will likely drive additional opportunity for gaming revenue,” he explained. “There are still a number of headwinds with economic and geopolitical forces that could impact the current trends in revenue. With a recession pending, a potential banking crisis, and other factors, Nevada continues to prevail through these challenges but these and other factors could have an overall impact on Clark County and the rest of the state.”
