Featured Articles Archive - Page 333

Why the slot machine return percentage you pay for isn't what you get

Payouts on slots for various results are emblazoned on the belly glasses or video screens of the machines. However, other than at video poker, the associated probabilities are normally kept under wraps. They’re assigned arbitrarily then stored in the internal computer chips...read more

MGM Resorts sees "imminent" approval for Cotai Strip

MGM Resorts International told investors Thursday that government approval was "imminent" for the company's plans to develop a hotel-casino on Macau's Cotai Strip. The language used by company executives during a quarterly earnings conference call surprised analysts because MGM Resorts officials have normally been somewhat reserved in their thoughts about Cotai...read more

MGM Resorts increase revenues 51 percent in first quarter, but net loss also grows

Accounting issues and the consolidation of full results from its Macau hotel-casino into the company's overall financial picture left MGM Resorts International with a large net loss for first quarter. The casino operator said Thursday it lost $203.3 million in the period that ended March 31, compared with a loss of $89.8 million in the same quarter last year...read more

Ameristar Casinos nearly doubles its first-quarter profits

Ameristar Casinos, Inc. nearly doubled its profits in the first quarter, the company said Wednesday. The Las Vegas-based regional casino operator said its net income for the quarter that ended March 31 was $41.4 million, compared to net income of $21.8 million for the same period in 2011...read more

Macau gaming revenues hit $3.1 billion in April, up 22 percent

Macau casinos collected $3.1 billion in gaming revenues in April, a 22 percent increase over the same month a year ago. For the first four months of 2012, gaming revenues in Macau have increased 25.7 percent, according to figures released Wednesday by the Special Administrative Region's casino regulators...read more

Ohio regulators license Horseshoe Casino Cleveland

The Ohio Casino Control Commission licensed the Horseshoe Casino Cleveland on Wednesday, allowing the property to open May 14 as the state's first full-service casino.Caesars Entertainment Inc. is 20 percent owner of the casino and will manage the property, which is located in downtown Cleveland...read more

Caesars' net loss nearly doubles, but revenues rise

Caesars Entertainment Inc. doubled its net loss in the first quarter, but told investors the results were due largely to a noncash impairment charge covering a canceled casino project in Biloxi, Miss. In Las Vegas, where Caesars operates 10 hotel-casinos on or near the Strip, revenues grew 6.2 percent to $771.6 million in the period ended March 31, while cash flow, reported as pretax earnings, increased 9.3 percent. Caesars Entertainment Chairman Gary Loveman told analysts and investors on a Tuesday afternoon conference call that the company's Las Vegas figures will continue to improve. "In Las Vegas, business from international visitors continued to drive growth in gaming revenues," Loveman said...read more

Pinnacle Entertainment reduces first quarter net loss

Las Vegas-based Pinnacle Entertainment, Inc., which posted a first-quarter net loss but increases in revenues and cash flow, said Tuesday that it expects to open a $368 million hotel-casino in Baton Rouge, La., by Labor Day while proceeding on expansion projects in St...read more

Affinity Gaming debt plan leads to rating boost

A bond rating service on Tuesday gave its blessing to plans by Affinity Gaming to raise more than $200 million in new debt that would pay down existing loans. The Las Vegas-based casino operator, which owns the three Primm resorts and the off-Strip Terrible's, wants to use the money to extend its debt maturity by five years to 2020. Moody's Investors Service boosted its view of Affinity to "positive" from "stable." Affinity, formerly known as Herbst Gaming, recently completed an asset swap with Golden Gaming in which it traded a slot machine route division and casinos in Pahrump for Golden's three casinos in Colorado...read more

Good-bye Sahara, hello SLS Las Vegas - Strip property to be redeveloped

Goodbye Sahara, hello SLS Las Vegas. Think of this as an implosion without the dynamite. Sahara owners SBE Entertainment Group, LLC of Los Angeles and San Francisco-based private equity group Stockbridge Real Estate said Monday they had completed the process to acquire $300 million in financing that will return Sahara, which was shuttered almost a year ago, into an operational north-Strip hotel-casino sometime in 2014. SBE Chef Executive Officer Sam Nazarian said the three existing hotel towers would remain, but two will be "stripped down to their skeletons." A low-rise hotel structure will be torn down, but the 2,500-space parking garage will remain. SLS Las Vegas will have roughly 1,600 rooms and operate as a "true boutique resort," although it will be the largest SLS hotel in the company...read more