“We are pursuing expansion opportunities in Asia, Europe and Latin America”

What has been the performance of Caesars Entertainment Corporation’s casino during the first half of the year? 
We reported our best first-half numbers since the recession began three years ago. The gains were attributable to increased spending from our most loyal customers and higher hotel revenues, particularly in Las Vegas, both of which helped offset the temporary closures of five properties in the Midwestern and Southern United States due to flooding. 

What is the most profitable casino for the company?
Because we have 52 properties in seven countries, we don't report individual resort results. Instead, we report by regions, and our nine Las Vegas region resorts generate the highest revenues and profits.

Have any of your properties been affected by the economic crisis? If so, how?
The entire gaming industry, including Caesars Entertainment, has been impacted by both a decline in overall visitation and customer spending over the past three years. However, we have recently seen increased visitation to areas such as Las Vegas, and increased spending by higher net-worth customers and international visitors.

Are you planning to open other casinos? Where? What can you tell us about the new projects?
We are aggressively pursuing expansion opportunities for casino-entertainment resorts as well as non-gaming luxury hotels in Asia, Europe and Latin America. We expect to announce details of some development  projects over the next several months.  

Which country has more potential for Caesars Entertainment Corporation’s land-based casinos?
We believe there are exciting opportunities around the globe, particularly in countries that have strong economies and that want to build robust tourism businesses. 

Caesars is planning to enter in the online gaming world. How will you combine this with your businesses in land-based casinos?
We already operate World Series of Poker and Caesars-branded online gaming sites in countries in which it is legal to do so, such as the United Kingdom. We believe online gaming is a natural complement to land-based casinos because it introduces new customers to the excitement of gaming and encourages those customers to visit  traditional casino resorts.

What are Caesars main plans and objectives for the coming months?
Our strategy is to provide the best possible service to our customers because that creates loyalty to our brands. We are expanding our Total Rewards customer-loyalty program so that our cardholders can earn rewards not only for their spending with us, but also for their spending with more than 500 land-based and online retail, travel and other outlets. As I mentioned earlier, we also are pursuing both gaming and non-gaming development operations around the globe. For example, we are building two new casino-resorts in Ohio with Rock Gaming and have announced new developments such as the Octavius Tower expansion and Linq retail, dining and entertainment project in Las Vegas.