Featured Articles Archive - Page 318

Pinnacle reverses second-quarter loss, will open Louisiana casino in August

Regional casino operator Pinnacle Entertainment, Inc. reversed its second-quarter net loss from a year ago while increasing revenues 3.1 percent.The Las Vegas-based company also said it was pushing the planned opening of its fourth casino in Louisiana to the end of August.Pinnacle said Wednesday its overall revenues in the quarter that ended June 30 were $298.3 million, mainly due to the company's flagship L'Auberge du Lac resort in Lake Charles, La., and its two St...read more

Shuffle up and deal: Online poker in Nevada may only be months away

Gamblers could be playing Internet poker in Nevada even before the Legislature has a chance to act on several Gaming Policy Committee recommendations to tweak current state regulations covering interactive gambling.Gov. Brian Sandoval, following the committee's final meeting Wednesday before the Legislature convenes in February, said he's comfortable state gaming regulators are taking appropriate steps to license reputable casino operators and technology providers while protecting players' interests.Nevada gaming regulators licensed slot machine makers Bally Technologies and International Game Technology in June to provide interactive gaming products to casino operators...read more

Las Vegas Sands earnings miss expectations, but revenue rises

Las Vegas Sands Corp. didn't dance around bad news over the company's second-quarter earnings. "Our quarterly results did not meet my expectations," company Chairman Sheldon Adelson said Wednesday. The casino operator blamed lower hold on table games play, higher provisions for accounts receivable at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, and unspecified elevated legal expenses for a 34.6 percent decline in net income and a 35.6 percent decrease in earnings per share for the three-month period ended June 30. Still, Las Vegas Sands, which operates casinos on the Strip, and in Macau, Singapore and Pennsylvania, had net revenues of $2.58 billion in the quarter, an increase of 10.1 percent compared with $2.35 billion in the second quarter of 2011. "Our financial results reflected solid revenue growth overall and significant cash flow in both Macau and Singapore, as well as the continued steady execution of our Cotai Strip development plan in Macau," Adelson said. The company's net income for the quarter was $240.6 million, compared with $367.6 million in the second quarter of 2011...read more

Regional gaming slowdown reduces Penn National's second-quarter results

Slowing gaming trends in several U.S. regional markets diminished second-quarter earnings for Penn National Gaming, Inc. The company, which owns the M Resort, said Tuesday its net income for the quarter that ended June 30 was $66.7 million, down 12 percent from $76 million in the same quarter a year ago...read more

IGT credits revenue rise partly to social gaming

Slot machine giant International Game Technology (IGT) said Tuesday the company's quarterly revenues increased 9 percent, due partly to the spare change social gaming customers spent to increase their virtual bankrolls at the company's Double Down Casino. IGT, which has headquarters in both Las Vegas and Reno, said overall revenues were $532.8 million in the third quarter, which ended June 30. However, IGT's net income in the quarter fell 46.4 percent to $46.6 million, compared with $86.9 million in the same quarter a year ago...read more

Pinnacle Entertainment to add small hotel to Boomtown New Orleans casino

Pinnacle Entertainment, Inc. officials said Tuesday the company would spend $20 million to build a 150-room hotel tower at the company's Boomtown New Orleans. The development would mark the second construction for Las Vegas-based Pinnacle in Louisiana...read more

Top-10 things I'll remember about the new Palms sportsbook

On my last day in Las Vegas after witnessing Antonio Esfandiari's victory in the $1 million Big One for One Drop, I decided to check off one of the items on my sports bettor's bucket list, so I headed down Flamingo Road to The Palms Casino Resort and placed a $10 wager on 13 Major League Baseball games.Okay, so my bucket list says you need to place a wager on every MLB game on the slate, but it was the Fourth of July, and unfortunately I'd missed the first pitch of two games that were already in progress...read more

An easy solution to Echelon eyesore

Here's a better idea than Boyd Gaming Corporation's plan to spend $4 million on palm trees, landscaping and facades to hide a shuttered $4.8 billion development on the Strip that has sat unfinished since 2008 and is one of the boulevard's biggest eyesores.Just tear it down.The fact is Boyd's original concept for the CityCenter-like Echelon project - five hotels of various sizes, a large casino, 750,000 square feet of convention space, 30 restaurants, 300,000 square feet of retail and entertainment amenities, all covering 87 acres - is not going to happen.Not in this lifetime.Boyd Gaming might someday build a 2,000-to-3,000-room hotel-casino on the Echelon site once the economy stabilizes and the Las Vegas market warrants that type of investment.Until then, Boyd plans to keep the unfinished steel- and-concrete structures in place, hoping to incorporate the Echelon remnants into whatever comes.In regulatory filings, Boyd said it would like to build out Echelon in phases, but the company won't revisit the plans for at least three years...read more

Nevadan at Work: Transplant didn't want to leave Las Vegas

David Arrajj literally received his latest job offer during his going away party. In 2000, Arrajj was corporate counsel for Park Place Entertainment, which operated the Hilton Hotels' gaming properties, including the former Las Vegas Hilton and Bally's Las Vegas. Company executives asked Arrajj to transfer back to back to Atlantic City...read more

How does choice affect the odds of forming ranked five-card poker hands?

Most poker games are resolved on the basis of a five-card-hand hierarchy. Common sense suggests that rankings within the hierarchy track the odds against forming the various hands. That is, royals should be the toughest to get, followed by lower-order straight flushes, quads, full houses, and so forth...read more