Featured Articles Archive - Page 445

Harrah's Entertainment seeking approval for Dragonfish

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- Harrah's Entertainment is seeking suitability approval from Nevada gaming regulators for its business partner, an online gaming company based in Gibraltar that is providing the software for the casino operator to manage three Internet gambling sites in the United Kingdom. The application was filed last week by Harrah's on behalf of Dragonfish, a division of 888 Holdings, under the state's Foreign Gaming Act. It is the first time Nevada gaming regulators have been asked to investigate the suitability of an online gaming company that took wagers from American gamblers before the enactment of the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act in 2006. The bill, signed into law by President George W...read more

CityCenter to report $255 million loss

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- CityCenter is expected to report an operating loss of $255 million in the first quarter when MGM Mirage releases earnings in early May.In a statement to investors after stock markets closed on Wednesday, the casino operator said it expects to report a first-quarter net loss of $96.7 million, or 22 cents per share for the first three months of the year...read more

Analysts boost prospects for three casino operators

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- Maybe that 33 percent increase in Strip gaming revenues during February impressed Wall Street. Analyst Steven Kent of Goldman Sachs and Joe Greff of JPMorgan increased their price target for MGM Mirage Tuesday. Greff also upped his opinion of Wynn Resorts and Las Vegas Sands Corp. Kent and Greff said that MGM Mirage would benefit from improving travel, a sign that room rates and occupancy are improving in Las Vegas. "We are raising our 12-month price target on MGM Mirage shares given improving business travel trends and our continued confidence that MGM Mirage will complete asset sales according to plan to deleverage the balance sheet," Kent told investors. In February MGM Mirage reached a deal with lenders to extend the deadline for paying off about $3.6 billion of its $13 billion in debt to February 2014. Greff thought investors are under appreciating MGM Mirage's advance convention bookings. "We continue to believe that the group booking acceleration should drive improved blended Strip room rates based on positive mix shift," Greff said. Shares of MGM Mirage closed Tuesday at $15.41 on the New York Stock Exchange, up 37 cents of 2.46 percent. Greff also praised Las Vegas Sands, saying the company will benefit an improving Las Vegas market and the opening of the $5.5 billion Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, which has a soft opening in two weeks, followed by a grand opening in June. Las Vegas Sands closed Tuesday at $24.39 on the New York Stock Exchange, up 17 cents of 0.70 percent. Greff said Wynn Resorts should continue to see strong results from Wynn Macau...read more

Harrah's to issue $500 million in notes

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- Harrah's Entertainment plans to issue $500 million in second priority secured notes that are due in 2018, which will be used to pay down loans that come due over the next two years. In a statement Tuesday, the casino operator said the offering is subject to several conditions. Soon after the announcement, Moody's Investors Service maintained a "negative" rating outlook toward Harrah's long-term debt. Moody's said the ratings and outlook anticipate a continued decline in gaming revenues in Harrah's two largest markets, Las Vegas and Atlantic City, which "will negatively impact the company's operating performance in 2010." In February, gaming revenues in Las Vegas grew almost 33 percent, the largest single-month increase since November 1999...read more

Few condo sales at CityCenter, but analysts satisfied

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- CityCenter has sold 25 of its 2,400 high-rise condominium units since sales began closing at the end of January. The figure represents just 1 percent of the $8.5 billion development's residences...read more

Top-10 ways Las Vegas Sands is going green

From gambling to fine dining and carousing, there is no shortage of entertainment options in Las Vegas. But a few weeks ago, I found myself in a place I had never envisioned visiting -- the waste recycling area for the Venetian and the Palazzo. Las Vegas Sands has become a global leader in sustainable development...read more

Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas sees high views as a draw

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas is not for acrophobes. From a 40th-floor open-air balcony overlooking the Strip, Cosmopolitan hotel guests are seemingly at eye-level with the Eiffel Tower replica across the street at Paris Las Vegas. And the Cosmopolitan has 10 stories of hotel rooms above the 40th floor. Each unit of the 2,995-room hotel has its own terrace, which is unheard of in Las Vegas. The difference is also the experience. The Eiffel Tower viewing platform is fully enclosed by steel and mesh. At the Cosmopolitan, hotel guests can take in the Strip, gaze upon the Bellagio fountains, look down on the Planet Hollywood Resort swimming pool and oversee CityCenter from beyond their rooms outside on a patio-style setting. A steel-enforced railing bar keeps you about two feet from the terraces' edge...read more

Wynn pulls Philadelphia casino project

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania -- Casino developer Steve Wynn spent more than an hour Monday meeting with the mayor of Philadelphia, touting his plan for what he had said would be the "cutest place we ever built" on a waterfront gaming site along the Delaware River. Wynn, chairman of Wynn Resorts Ltd., even delivered a package of color renderings of the proposed $600 million casino-only development to state gaming regulators, three weeks ahead of schedule. On Thursday, in a two-paragraph statement after the stock markets closed for trading, Wynn said he was canceling plans for the project. "We are fascinated by the legalization of full gaming in Pennsylvania and stimulated by the opportunity that it presents for Wynn Resorts, but this particular project did not, in the end, present an opportunity that was appropriate for our company," Wynn said in the statement. The state and city would take more than half of the new casino's slot revenues and 16 percent of its table game revenues. Wynn declined comment beyond the statement. The news surprised his partners in the project...read more

Nevada wants gaming industry to pay to regulate

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- The idea of having the gaming industry pay the costs to regulate and enforce Nevada's gambling laws didn't die in the recent special session of the Legislature. But Nevada lawmakers want Gaming Control Board Chairman Dennis Neilander to analyze by this summer the concept of having casino operators and slot-machine manufacturers fund the agency's $32 million annual budget. During February's special legislative session to close a more than $800 million budget gap, casino lobbyists backed away from an effort by Democrats to have gaming pay the control board's costs...read more

Nevada gaming revenues jump big in February

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- The Year of the Tiger had some teeth. Nevada recorded its first double-digit increase in gaming revenues in almost three years during February, buoyed by results from the customer-rich Chinese New Year holiday and Super Bowl weekend. Statewide, casinos reported total gaming revenues of $946.6 million during the month, a 13.9 percent increase compared with February 2009, when casinos collected $830.9 million, according to figures released Thursday by the Gaming Control Board. The last time Nevada gaming revenues grew by double-digits was in July 2007...read more