November 2015 Las Vegas Stock Recap

With the calendar now showing December 2015, let's take a look back and see how Las Vegas stocks did in the month of November.

After a blazing hot October for Las Vegas stocks, they came back down to earth a little bit in November.

Caesars Entertainment was the only stock finishing up in November, inching up a little over 5% after soaring over 36% in October.

MGM Resorts International and Boyd Gaming were relatively flat in October, both declining slightly.

Wynn Resorts and Las Vegas Sands both were both down a little over 10% in November after both had a strong October. Some issues in Macau continue to weigh on these two operators.

Penn National was down almost 11% in November, after having the weakest performance of all the Las Vegas stocks in October. I'm guessing their master lease accounting issues could have hurt their stock price recently.

Company	Symbol	Start	End	Change
Caesars	CZR	8.05	8.47	+5.22%
MGM	MGM	23.19	22.74	-1.94%
Boyd	BYD	19.99	19.59	-2%
Wynn	WYNN	69.95	62.77	-10.26%
Penn	PENN	17.86	15.95	-10.69%
Sands	LVS	49.51	44.06	-11%

October 2015 Revenue and Visitation Numbers

October 2015 Las Vegas Gaming Revenue and Visitor Statistics have been released.

Las Vegas visitation was up again in October increasing +5.6% year over year. This translated into citywide occupancy up +3.7% with average room rates and revenue per available room increasing significantly (+11.7% and +16.3% respectively). Total room nights occupied were up +3.3%. October was a another strong month for convention attendance, which was up +12.6%.

Downtown continued its winning streak with strong occupancy (+7.7%), average daily rate (+11.1%), and revenue per available room (+21.7%) all trending upwards.

Air traffic was also up again in October, increasing +6.4% year over year.

Gaming revenue on the Strip was down -5.12%. Slots were flat while table games were down -10.22%. It seems as if gamblers were lucky in October as table game win percentages were lower than normal.

Downtown had a slow gaming month, down -6.5% overall. Weakness in slot machines (-12.43%) offset strength in table games (+7.21%) in October.

The up and down Las Vegas locals market was down this time, as the Boulder Strip was -6.55% in October while North Las Vegas was -3.96% year over year.

In conclusion, October was a really strong month for Las Vegas visitation, while gaming numbers were a little disappointing in part because of lower hold. The weak gaming numbers seem to reflect the fact that people are gambling less in Las Vegas, but it's kind of hard to tell with high end play and hold percentages skewing the numbers so much.

Casinos Test Drink Ticket System

A few months ago news spread that Mirage was testing a drink voucher system at one of their video poker bars.

Instead of the bartender giving free drinks while you are playing, you would have to "earn" the drink by playing a certain amount that would trigger your machine to print out a drink voucher.

Now several message boards are discussing a similar drink voucher system being installed at Cosmopolitan at their Bond bar.

I'm hoping this trend won't continue and that these experiments with drink vouchers at video poker bars won't prove to be successful. I really don't see how having a system like this is going to save the casino that much money.

Sure, some people like to take advantage by putting a $20 in and getting a few free drinks by slow playing the machine, but I think bartenders are pretty good at making sure people are actually playing before comping them.

While a drink ticket system is certainly annoying to players, it's not completely unheard of in Las Vegas as most sportsbooks around town have implemented a similar policy for better or worse.

New Resorts Opening in Macau Downturn

Encore, Aria, and Cosmopolitan are three of the newest casinos in Las Vegas. All three are considered successful, but they opened right in the middle of a severe slowdown in Las Vegas which didn't make things easy.

History might be repeating itself in Macau, as that city faces a downturn right as major properties are set to open. Studio City just opened, while Wynn Palace will be opening next year followed by The Parisian after that.

A recent New York Times article did a good job of chronicling some of the issues in Macau. The government restriction on table games at Studio City prompted Steve Wynn to show frustration. Macau's junket operators have also been under fire lately. A possible smoking ban could be another hurdle for Macau casinos.

I tend to be pretty optimistic on the future prospects in Macau. Somewhat like Las Vegas I think these new upcoming resorts might have a rough start but should find their footing eventually.

Even with the recent downturn Macau is still a much larger gaming market than Las Vegas. I think some of the government regulations will ease with time and these issues will be seen as minor growing pains. We shall see.

Monorail Expansion Talk

It's a slow Las Vegas news day on this Black Friday, so I had to take a look around to find something to blog about.

I came across this article from two weeks ago about the Las Vegas Monorail and a possible expansions to the line.

Everyone wants to know when the monorail will be expanded to the airport, but the article concluded that an expansion to the airport probably isn't economically feasible. Not to mention opposition from taxi cab companies.

An expansion to Mandalay Bay might be on the table soon though, along with a station at the Sands Expo and Convention Center. If those two expansions are completed the monorail would link the three major convention centers in Las Vegas.

The monorail has struggled with ridership due to its out of the way location behind many of the hotels it serves. Ten years after it opened it's still operational though, and seems to have found a niche serving conventioneers. Linking the convention centers makes sense in that regard.

Not mentioned in the article is a possible monorail expansion downtown to Fremont Street. Although it's probably not happening anytime soon due to cost and routing issues, this would be the most exciting monorail route for the average tourist. Being able to travel quickly between the Strip and Fremont Street for cheap would be ideal. Maybe we'll see it someday, but I'm not holding my breath.