Hi Rusty. So Scott was accurate in the article he quoted, it was just a flawed article that was factually incorrect. All the information I sited is for publicly traded companies and available to shareholders and investors. I pulled my research from Morningstar and Streetwise historical profit analysis. While it’s true some of these companies posted a loss, digging into their financials shows it was not always from revenue generating activities such as rooms, F&B, and gambling drop. I think it is untruthful to project LV casino operators as running loss businesses for past 8 years and presenting parking fees as the solution to getting them to profitability. Much of what is generated by the LV PR machines if fabricated to serve the business as investors are presented with a story that talks about growth and the public is presented with one that talks about losses to justify squeezing the customer thru fees and reduction in comp offering. A little digging below the surface can reveal a lot.

I’m not going to say who is right or wrong, but I find it hard to believe that the industry as a whole has been hemmorhaging cash for eight consecutive years. Have some been losing money/market share? Naturally… nature of all businesses, I’d say.

How good or bad the past eight years have been is a lot like any good political debate. You can cherry pick statistics to argue on the side you’re lobbying for, and ignore the rest. Seems rather convenient that casinos are adding/hiking parking fees and, look, here’s proof that we can’t make money any more!

So while I am in no position to judge which argument is more accurate, (I’m a casserole expert, dammit, not an economist), I find the wholesale idea that casinos have been losing money for eight years to be preposterous.

I hate these articles, they are self serving crap pieces. First the author is factually incorrect in the headline. A basic review of financial statements available to share holders of Wynn and Sands have those companies turning profits thanks to Macau during this period. Digging deeper into financials you can report ‘some’ of these public companies took a loss (which could be attributed to write downs, employee expenses, end of tax credits, etc). Let me put it another way. If they were bleeding money as bad as the shoddy author presents, access to capital and operating lines of credit would be severely limited. There’s the bond market of course as we know thanks to CET, how you can sink a company. The loss he describes is .0269% across the 24 billion. Easily the write down on real estate values erosion. The devil is in the details like GA expenses, Gaming Drop, Average Room Rates, YoY gambling win, etc. All which play into Net income. Which a lot of these operators have seen growth. This is why stock investors and bankers pay little attention to articles like these

I don’t know about all that. I just read articles on the Internet. https://apnews.com/afb696a68ee8410080937c1d608ce079/nevada-casinos-turn-profit-fiscal-2016-first-2008

Agree. It’s a money grab, but that sounds less romantic.

I see what you’re saying. But wow, that’s kind of a long stretch for me.

Sorry Scott, I am going to have to disagree with that as ‘Fake News”,
or shoddy reporting here’s why. Lets look at 8 public traded gaming companies over the last 5 years stock profit analysis. I won’t get too deep in the weeds since depreciation write down, expenses, etc can make it look like a ‘loss”. Lets look at Gross Margin for the periods.
5 year industry average 43.73%. Wynn 38% Gross / Net 9.30%, MGM 37.80% Gross / Net -3.10, Sands Gross 46.90% / Net 16.30%, Caesars (I’ll give you that one!), Genting Gross 29.80% / Net NA, Boyd Gross 45.90% / Net -4.0, Stations Gross 45.10% / Net 1.0 %, Red Rock Resorts Gross 55.10 % / Net 2.10. So that’s 4 out of 7 with a 5 year net average in the black and 6 with a very healthy 5 year gross margin. Now there is no arguing bad real estate investing took it’s toll from 2008 to 2011 during the Vegas downturn and resulted in huge write downs. Some of which never recovered from debt loads. I think it’s safe to say, that operator revenue was still very healthy for those periods and nowhere near as bad as we think. Taxes were still collected, rooms were still remodeled, headliners were still paid, clubs still opened, and visitor attendance still grew. Gaming operators just want to see the same net profit growth that other businesses are enjoying in the market these days and on the backs of their customers.

What if that actually happens? What if self-park is less busy and their customers can get better spots and have to walk less far in the heat? That would enhance my experience. I think they anticipate even bigger traffic and crowds at the new attraction, so they’re weeding out the folks who are using the spots to visit other casinos, etc. Just a thought.

Casinos, as a whole, overall, on average, didn’t make a profit for the eight years prior to 2016. The reasons for that are numerous and varied.