Land Based Casinos

MGM Mirage Casino

After casino revenue in Macau, China, increased by 70% in July when compared with 2009’s results, MGM Resorts International has made clear its intentions to improve its presence in Asia. While the Las Vegas casino industry has been dealt huge financial blows over the past two years, the casino industry in Macau – the only province in China where it’s legal to gamble, has boomed. Now, MGM Resorts International’s CEO, Jim Murren, told Bloomberg that they are “starting to assert ourselves” in Macau, and aim to “have more properties in Asia over time”.

While MGM Resorts International is looking to increase its market share in Macau, the company has also announced a significant turning point for its properties in Las Vegas. For the first time since October 2007, revenue from the casino operator’s rooms in Las Vegas increased, which has led Murren to suggest the company is “starting to see a recovery” in Nevada. The CityCenter resort complex, a joint venture between both MGM and Dubai World recorded operating losses of $128 million; however analysts are confident that finances for the Las Vegas resort will improve during the second half of the year.

Trump Taj Mahal

On Friday, the three Trump casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey, emerged from their third bankruptcy, after cutting company debt by $1.3 billion following a restructure of the business. The Taj Mahal, Trump Plaza and Trump Marina were all part of the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, which allowed the owners of the casino resorts to “restructure” the business and improve the financial state of the company. Friday’s court transaction has officially confirmed that that Trump Entertainment Resorts, the company behind the casinos, has fully emerged from bankruptcy and now has over $250 million in equity.

Speaking to the press, Marc Lasry, the new chairman of Trump Entertainment Resorts, suggested that the casino operator “today begins a period marked by new financial strength”. While Donald Trump’s stake in the business was heavily reduced while the company was re-organised, he still retains a 10% stake in Trump Entertainment Resorts. According to Associated Press, the casinos will still be able to use the name and likeness of Trump, as well as that of his daughter, Ivanka.

Have you visited any of the Trump casinos recently? Do you think they can compete with other casinos in the area? If you have an opinion on this story, we'd love to hear from you.

Margaritaville Casino and Resort

As of late, the attention given to the casino industry in the United States has tended to focus on gaming capitals such as Las Vegas and Atlantic City. However, evidence the impact of the recession on the US casino market can be found in states across the country. A recent article by ABC news about the proposed Margaritaville Casino and Resort in Biloxi, Mississippi, indicates how, over the space of juist a few years, the casino industry has dramatically changed.

In 2007, a new joint venture between Harrah’s Entertainment and singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett was announced. A casino resort, which would be themed around Buffett and named “Margaritaville” after the star’s 1977 smash hit, would open by spring 2010 in Biloxi. Since then, the casino industry has been ravaged by a global recession and it seems that the years of constant growth and new developments are a distant memory. In late 2008, after taking the project private, Harrah’s announced that they would “sideline” Margaritaville. Since then, the company has had to reassess its financial situation and has now announced that while it is “committed” to the project”, they “do not have a date for when construction will resume”.

Flag of the United States

Just a few days ago we blogged about whether casinos in Atlantic City would ever recover from the recession. In the blog post, we limited our discussion to this city in New Jersey, which was one of the first areas on the East Coast to attempt to compete with Las Vegas’ monopoly on resort style gaming in the United States. Well, according to executives at the East Coast Gaming Congress, it’s not just casinos in Atlantic City which are seeing profit losses and a decline in revenue due to increased competition and less consumer spending: Casino operators in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware and other states, have told executives at the event that they’re now competing directly with one another to attract customers.

American Gaming Association president, Frank Fahrenkopf Jr., has suggested that casinos on the East Coast of the United States will face even more competition when twelve gambling venues, which currently only offer slots, begin offering table games in the next few months. When discussing the current state of the East Coast gambling market, John Finamore of Penn National Gaming proposed that while the industry isn’t “saturated” at the moment, it’s “clearly crowded”.