Nevada recovery gaining momentum for casinos

Brown delivered UNLV’s midyear economic outlook seminar Tuesday at the Venetian. “The good news,” Brown said, “is that the Southern Nevada economy is improving and at an accelerating rate. But the great news is that the growth is widespread across Southern Nevada’s industries.”

Brown said the U.S. economy is on the cusp of acceleration, and Nevada is returning to its long-term trends, which generally have been healthier than the rest of the nation. Visitor volume and gambling revenue are climbing at rates of less than 3 percent with Strip resorts supporting the bulk of the growth.

In 2013, Southern Nevada visitation fell less than a half percent from 2012’s record level. This year, volume is on a record pace and is expected to eclipse 40 million people for the first time. March, Brown noted, was Southern Nevada’s best-ever tourism month.

Brown is forecasting a 0.9 percent increase in visitor volume in 2014 and 2 percent more in 2015. Gaming numbers also are slowly picking up.
Still well below the US$ 1.1 billion in average monthly gross gambling revenue levels of late 2007, amounts have slowly climbed from a low point in 2010 to a more than US$ 900 million monthly average in 2014.

Brown noted that tourism and gambling continues to be driven by the Strip. “It’s been established that the closer you are to the Las Vegas Strip, the bigger the share you’re getting,” he said. “As you move away from the Strip to other parts of Las Vegas, to other parts of Clark County and all of Nevada, the growth isn’t quite as strong.”

Brown, who attributes slow growth in gambling revenue to increased industry competition nationwide, is forecasting a 3.2 percent increase in revenue in 2014 and 3.7 percent in 2015.
PokerStars advocate

The chief executive of European online gambling giant 888 Holdings said Wednesday that rival PokerStars should be allowed to operate in the United States now that the company is being sold for US$ 4.9 billion to a Canadian Internet wagering firm.
The comments by 888 CEO Brian Mattingley differ dramatically from online industry rivals and various state lawmakers, who have moved to ban PokerStars from entering legal U.S. gambling jurisdictions.

PokerStars, which forfeited US$ 731 million to federal prosecutors in 2012 to settle a civil complaint, accepted online wagers from Americans after the activity was ruled illegal in 2006.

Mattingley, whose Gibraltar-based company is partners with Caesars Interactive Entertainment in legal online gambling websites in Nevada and New Jersey, said adding PokerStars into the mix would grow the U.S. Internet market. Actual Internet gambling revenues reported by Nevada - less than US$ 1 million a month - and New Jersey have fallen far below lofty projections.

“We compete with PokerStars throughout Europe,” Mattingley said in a phone interview from London. “They are a formidable competitor. But they would make all of us work much harder, and it would expand the market. I would much rather have a small slice of a large pie, than a big piece of a small pie.”
Mattingley said Nevada’s three online poker operations and the six Atlantic City casinos that currently handle New Jersey’s online gambling business suffer because U.S. customers still access illegal and unregulated online gambling websites. “It would be like unleashing an 800-pound gorilla into the market, but having more players on a regulated site would benefit everyone,” Mattingley said.

India market
The Nevada Commission on Tourism is considering expanding its international marketing program to include attracting visitors to the state from India.
Commissioners on Wednesday told director Claudia Vecchio to research details of the proposed scope of the state’s presence in the country, viewed as one of the leading emerging tourism markets because of its expanding middle class. The proposal comes 10 years after Nevada opened a tourism office in China, the first licensed by that country to a state government.

Caesars debt offer
Caesars Entertainment extended by more than a week an offer for investors to buy $791.8 million of the company’s long-term debt. The casino operator had extended the offer to end Monday. The offer now expires Friday. The bond purchases are part of the company’s effort to restructure a portion of its gambling industry high US$ 23 billion in long-term debt.

Equipment startup
Gamblit Gaming, a start-up gambling equipment company that plans to combine traditional slot machines with entertainment-style video games, was granted a license Thursday in Las Vegas by the Nevada Gaming Commission.
The company based in Glendale, California, is a subsidiary of Hard 8 Games, which is owned by American Capital, a business development company in Bethesda, Maryland, and traded publicly on the Nasdaq.