Featured Articles Archive - Page 329

Caesars chairman and Celtics owner Loveman says casino industry and NBA have unique connection

Caesars Entertainment Corp. Chairman Gary Loveman finally got some bragging rights over Carnival Cruise Lines founder Ted Arison on Friday night. Loveman has a minority ownership stake in the Boston Celtics, which beat the Miami Heat, 101-91, in the third game of the teams’ best-of-seven NBA Eastern Conference Championship series...read more

Gaming stocks plunged with market

The stock market's 275-point plunge Friday took the gaming sector along for the downward ride. Stock prices for publicly traded casino operators and gambling equipment manufacturers tumbled along with other industries. Wynn Resorts Ltd...read more

Macau gaming revenues experience smallest monthly increase in three years

Only in Macau could one-month gaming revenue of $3.26 billion - more than half of what the entire Las Vegas Strip produces in a year - be termed a disappointment. For the first time in almost three years, Macau casinos in May didn't post the double-digit monthly increase that investors and analysts have come to expect. Macau's Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau said Friday that casinos collected $3.26 billion from customers during the month, a 7.3 percent increase from May 2011...read more

Shuffle Master plans new headquarters on nine-acre site

Shuffle Master, Inc. said Tuesday it paid $2.2 million for a nearly nine-acre site in Las Vegas to build a new corporate headquarters and manufacturing office. The land, near Jones Boulevard and Interstate 215 in the southwestern part of the valley, will house nearly 110,000 square feet of new office and manufacturing space, bringing the gaming equipment provider's departments, services and employees to one location. Its current headquarters comprise four separate building leases that house executive and corporate departments, manufacturing, warehouses, an interactive division and a products showroom. Construction is to begin this summer and be completed in fall 2013. The new site will take Shuffle Master away from its office south of McCarran International Airport to a location near the corporate headquarters of slot maker International Game Technology. Shuffle Master Chief Executive Officer Gavin Isaacs said the timing was right, given the cost of real estate. Isaacs said Las Vegas continues to be the gaming industry's "intellectual hub." "When we first moved into our current location nearly 15 years ago, the company generated $27 million in annual revenues and had just two product lines," Isaacs said...read more

Caesars CFO leaving post to join NV Energy

Caesars Entertainment Inc. Chief Financial Officer Jonathan Halkyard is leaving the company to join local power utility NV Energy. Caesars and NV Energy made separate statements Wednesday announcing Halkyard's job change. In a statement, Caesars said Halkyard was leaving to "pursue an opportunity outside of the gaming industry." The casino operator didn't identify Halkyard's new position. Moments later, NV Energy said in a statement that Halkyard would join the utility as chief financial officer and executive vice president. Halkyard replaces Dilek Samil, who was promoted from NV Energy's senior vice president, treasurer and chief financial officer to executive vice president and chief operating officer. "We have transformed NV Energy over the last decade and we are reshaping our organization to match the direction we're taking in coming years," said Michael Yackira, NV Energy's president and CEO. "Dilek's leadership within the company and her prior experience in operations made her a great fit for this new position...read more

Ohio judge's ruling opens door for 17,500 VLT games

Nevada's slot machine manufacturing industry received some good news from a courtroom some 2,100 miles to the east. An Ohio judge Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit blocking the state's racetracks from operating slot machinelike video lottery terminals...read more

Ado over IGT chief's resume brings shrug from analysts

The dust-up over International Game Technology CEO Patti Hart's resume discrepancy lasted all of a 24-hour news cycle. The financial community's confidence in the slot machine manufacturing giant wasn't shaken. With sales of newer slot machines to replace older games showing a bit of an upswing and international business continuing to flourish, Wall Street had little concern that Hart's resume showed she graduated from Illinois State University with a degree in marketing and economics, rather than a degree in business administration with an emphasis in marketing and economics. Other than the financial website message board junkies, the analyst community let out a collective "who cares?" Stifel Nicolaus Capital Markets gaming analyst Steven Wieczynski told investors recently that he was impressed with the company's direction. "Several encouraging trends support our favorable long-term view on IGT shares," Wieczynski said. Following a series of meetings with new company Chief Financial Officer John Vandemore, whose background had been criticized as being long on Disney theme park familiarity but lacking in gaming experience, Wieczynski told investors the new executive would help position IGT to outperform its counterparts in the manufacturing sector. "His diverse financial background, outside of gaming, could help IGT take a fresh look at their financial analysis platform, which has been recently criticized by some investors," Wieczynski said. Much could have been lost following revelations earlier this month that Hart's resume was in error. Hart, 54, had been an outside director at Internet giant Yahoo...read more

Nevada's richest list includes many with casino ties

In the age of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement amidst reverberating cries of the "99 percent versus the 1 percent," one has to wonder whether inclusion on the annual Forbes 400 list of the Richest People in America is actually a good thing. At a time when the superwealthy are under a microscope, the Forbes 400 list, which yearly chronicles the ups and downs of America's billionaires, might bring some unwanted attention. Two University of Nevada Las Vegas sociology professors, however, said Americans are enamored with the wealthy, which often outweighs jealousy. The U.S...read more

Has gaming reached a saturation point? An oddly self-serving cry of "Enough"

It's not shocking when anti-gaming zealots or those opposed to gambling for moral reasons argue that America has too many casinos. Imagine the surprise, however, when the developer of Maryland's largest casino suggests the U.S. has reached a saturation point. The statement seemed a bit self-serving. During the East Coast Gaming Congress in Atlantic City last week, Cordish Company Chairman David Cordish suggested casino expansion needs a respite...read more

Gaming companies place bets on social gaming sites

Strip casino giant MGM Resorts International isn't planning to open more multibillion-dollar integrated casino-resort complexes anytime soon. Instead, MGM Resorts will in June launch myVegas, a free-to-play social gaming casino where only virtual money is bet to win only virtual prizes. Think of Farmville meets Bellagio. MGM Resorts Chairman Jim Murren told an audience at the Southern Gaming Summit earlier this month in Biloxi, Miss., that a convergence of casino gaming and social media will be "the next big thing in our industry." He's not a voice in the virtual wilderness. Caesars Entertainment Inc...read more