Caesars Entertainment Corp. on Thursday broke ground on its first non-gaming US resort to mark the start of a new chapter in its history.

Caesars Republic, the first Caesars property in the US that would not feature a casino, is now under construction in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Arizona and Missouri-based real estate developer HCW has been tasked with building the Caesars Republic Scottsdale luxury brand hotel.

The hotel will be located in the heart of Scottsdale’s dining lifestyle district at Scottsdale Fashion Square. Once operational, it will be managed by HCW Hospitality and Aimbridge Hospitality. Caesars will lease its brand, have its say on design matters, and will integrate the property into its Caesars Rewards loyalty program.

Caesars Republic Scottsdale is set to open doors in the fall of 2021. Its 11-story glass tower will feature 265 hotel rooms, a 7,000-square-foot column-free ballroom with 34-foot sliding glass doors that will open onto a lawn for outdoor events with room for 600 people. The ballroom will also be able to be divided into four sections and to host banquets of up to 500 people.

The team tasked with raising and designing the new hotel currently also includes BRP Architects from Missouri, Studio 11 Interior Design from Texas, an Layton Construction from Arizona.

Italian Dining Experience

Caesars Republic Scottsdale will offer two dining concepts by celebrity chef Giada De Laurentiis. Her two restaurants at the hotel will be Luna by Giada and Pronto by Giada.

Luna by Giada will reflect Ms. De Laurentiis’ Roman heritage and her passion for Italian cuisine with California and Mediterranean influences. The restaurant will offer outdoor seating and iconic views of Camelback Mountain.

Pronto by Giada will represent a more casual cafe format and will offer Ms. De Laurentiis’ signature Italian fare and a blend of unique coffee offerings. Food will be prepared promptly for guests on the go.

The new Caesars-branded hotel will also have an elevated pool lounge and dining concept Seven (SVN) on its seventh floor, offering breathtaking views of the surrounding mountains and Arizona sunsets. SVN will serve guests a light poolside menu as well as craft cocktails. The outlet will also offer nightlife experience. It will be operated by Scottsdale-based Riot Hospitality Group.

Commenting on the start of construction work, HCW President and CEO Richard Huffman said that they are “thrilled to be breaking ground for the highly anticipated Caesars Republic Scottsdale” and that “upon opening in Fall 2021, the hotel will offer a dynamic destination experience to both locals and visitors traveling from afar.”

Caesars Chief Marketing Officer Chris Holdren added that “our partnership with HCW to create a world-class hotel and dining experience in one of the nation’s most desirable communities is very exciting.”

Caesars Republic Scottsdale is Caesars’ first US hotel designed exclusively as a non-gaming property. However, it is not the first non-gaming hotel in the entire portfolio of the Las Vegas-based casino and hospitality giant. In late 2018, the company debuted the Caesars Palace Bluewaters and Caesars Bluewaters hotels in Dubai.

Source: Groundbreaking Launches The New Caesars Republic Scottsdale Hotel

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to stay up to date on the day’s top casino news stories

The post Construction of Caesars’ First US Casinoless Resort Begins in Scottsdale, Arizona appeared first on Casino News Daily.

Before deciding whether or not they should re-open the state’s casino application process, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) would like the public’s input on a potential license for southeastern Massachusetts.

The MGC had issued a public comment near the end of January asking for a residence located in Region C of the state to submit their opinion as to whether a new casino was needed in the area. This region includes Bristol, Plymouth, Nantucket, Dukes and Barnstable counties. Residents have until March 16 to submit their opinion until March 16.

In addition to seeking the public’s thoughts, the commission also asked for market research firms to provide input  on a series of business-related questions surrounding the Massachusetts  gaming market. The questions cover how a new casino would impact Region C, as well as the overall impact on other casinos within the state.

MGC Commissioner Enrique Zuniga explained the motivation behind the survey: “We are generally targeting questions to understand more about the viability of the market, especially in the context of prior market studies and current results We want to see how likely it is that there could be a good proposal or a good viable license in that region.”

This comes at a time where the other facilities in Massachusetts are starting to see an upswing in revenues. MGM Springfield casino and Penn National Gaming’s Plainridge Park slots hall had both reported diminishing revenues in December but saw significant increases in the first month of 2020. The MGM Springfield total rose $1.65 million over December’s total, reaching $20.6 million. Plainridge Park saw a $900,000 increase to just over $11 million.

This is not the first time that Region C has been considered for a gaming license. In 2016, the MGC voted against a proposal by the Mass. Gaming and Entertainment to build a casino at Brockton Fairgrounds in Plymouth County.

Zuniga explained that the reason the casino measure failed was because there was concern that a Brockton Casino would directly compete against the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe’s First Light Resort and Casino in Taunton. He explained, “The prospect of the tribe eventually getting a casino in Taunton was going to have an end result in which we would have not one, but two casinos from that region, with the tribe paying zero percent in taxes to the state.”

Now that the Department of Interior has declined to grant the Mashpee Wampanoag land in trust where the Taunton casino was expected to be built, this no longer appears to be an issue. “This is effectively what we are trying to determine at this point through public responses is whether we should take another look at it,” Zuniga said.

The post Massachusetts Gaming Commission seeking public input on southeast casino appeared first on CalvinAyre.com.

Scientific Games reported earnings last week. They were not good, but they were still important. One thing all should know about Scientific Games is that the price action of the stock over the last 5 years makes no sense at all. It jerks every which way incoherently, almost like a penny stock being manipulated by pump and dump scammers. I am not saying that this has actually happened and I am not making any accusations of impropriety. I’m just saying recent movements seem to resemble this. It’s totally bonkers.

To wit, shares rose 1,240% from February 2016 to May 2018, despite the company consistently losing money during that time and drowing in debt service, refinance costs, and other unproductive dead weight. We caught that weird nutty malignant bubble-tumor thing here and I recommended shorting it at $52 on January 23 that year. The position took about 6 months to mature but those who hung on did well. The stock eventually bottomed at $15 by the end of 2018, right around where it bottomed in March 2009. The shares have had a couple of dead cat bounces since then and are now floating atround $23. I don’t see any potential for another rally here and I can’t understand why anyone would buy this company, finances being a disaster train wreck. If it jumps back up to $50 or so for whatever reason, I guess we can short it again. That would be fun.

Scientific Games is levered 4:1 and I see no way out of the hole without a bankruptcy restructuring, if that will even be possible by the time it becomes necessary. I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole company is just liquidated in pieces in the end for lack of a buyer.

Back to last week’s earnings, they were pretty bad. EPS missed “consensus” by 71 cents and revenue missed by $32M. The “consensus” was at a positive 25 cents, and the quarter ended with a loss of 46 cents a share. Side note: The fact that anyone on Wall Street even takes consensus estimates on anything, seriously, is testament to the diseased culture of herded mob groupthink follow-the-leader investing where everyone chases everyone else around in circles like a bunch of poodles chasing one another’s tails and yapping high pitched barks about bull markets or whatever. They keep chasing faster and faster until they all get so dizzy and sick trading money around in the same bank circuits that they all fall over and throw up on themselves. Maybe that’s what happened when Scientific Games shot up to $63 for no apparent reason. The poodles got a bit too excited there I guess.

There’s a nice, accurate image of Wall Street after a bust. Dizzy barfing poodles.

Forget “consensus”. Just look at the numbers and the business and decide as an individual human with a mind. Looking at what other people say individually as a check on your own research is one thing, but averaging out what everyone else says in a “consensus” as if economic realities are based on focus groups and treating it all like a politician would a campaign, is just complete nonsense.

Anyway, I digress. Got caught in a rant there. There’s little point in going any deeper into the earnings numbers here. There is just too much debt and not enough growth potential for the company to ever climb out of it. No dividend, nothing worth even considering. The only reason the company was at all profitable in 2018 by the way was because of a “$183 million reversal of a reserve related to resolving the Shuffle Tech legal matter.” Reversal reserve resolve Shuffle Tech…Pad kid poured curd pulled chord paired cod, and she sells seashells by the sea shore. But why the hell would anyone sell sea shells by the sea shore? They’re all right there on the ground for Pete’s sake! And who is Pete?! Is that girl selling seashells by the sea shore transgendered or something?

Anyway, Scientific games is, nevertheless, very much worth keeping an eye on. Not because you should buy it, ever, but because as a firm higher up in the structure of production towards the capital goods sector, its price is levered to the initial turn of the credit cycle, before it affects other sectors down the line towards the consumer sector. In other words it can serve as a warning for a turn of the cycle. Provided that the stock isn’t getting pumped or something.

If we look at the history of Scientific Games at and around the last turn, we see that the stock collapsed from October 2007 when the S&P 500 topped, to January 2008 by 61% to a low of $15.87 when it was getting clearer that the global economy was getting sick. By the time the S&P finally bottomed at 666 in March of 2009, Scientific Games was still trading at highs of $15 that month, where it initially collapsed down to in January. The initial collapse in the stock proved to be predictive.

There is a good chance that the credit cycle will indeed turn this year. I can’t say for sure yet. I will hopefully be able to tell if it’s happening by mid June. One earlier indicator that it just may be, could be Scientific Games. If lows of $14.79 are breached to the downside before this summer, then it could be a good indicator of a turn. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see those lows get breached soon, since it looks like we may have a trigger in place already – the coronavirus panic.

This crazy panic has reached a fever pitch and its shutting down global supply chains. The media loves themselves a nice good panic over nothing. It gives them ratings as everyone is glued to the news. But if the medical community had any sense to it and wasn’t just fueled into a frenzy by the media dogging it on, they’d just tell the elderly and those with underlying illnesses to say in their homes and focus aid towards them, since they are pretty much the only population at serious risk from this epidemic. The sick and elderly are of course not an integral part of production anyway and they are the biggest recipients of government welfare, so keeping them alone quarantined would not risk distrubing and collapsing the rickety global debt mountain that must be constantly fueled by production and growth. Almost everyone else can call in sick for a few days if they have to, with a small portion of hospitalizations and that would be pretty much it.

But no, instead they have to put entire cities on lockdown as if this is the beginning of a bona fide Nazi zombie apocalypse and slam the breaks on the entire global economy. I wonder what that’s gonna do with everyone levered up the wazoo?

Yes, I am aware I still have a (small) buy call out on Macau despite this. That’s a short term trade, not an investment. I still expect that eventually good news out of China will cause Macau stocks to zoom higher on a short term basis. I could be wrong. We’ll see. That’s why I only recommended 5% positioning maximum on that trade. But once summer hits it’s a completely different story. We’ll see what happens by May on that one, but beyond that, it doesn’t look too good.

The post Stay away from Scientific Games appeared first on CalvinAyre.com.

The National Football League’s once vehemently anti-betting stance is slowly being brushed aside like so much dandruff off Roger Goodell’s navy blue blazer.

On Friday, Sports Business Daily reported that the NFL’s Sports Betting Committee — honestly, it seems weird just reading that — had informed teams that they were now free to enter into individual sponsorships with US-licensed sports betting operators.

The NFL previously allowed teams to enter into sponsorships with companies engaged in sports betting provided the relationship wasn’t explicitly betting-focused. The NFL itself named Caesars Entertainment its Official Casino Sponsor, despite the ubiquity of sportsbooks at Caesars’ Nevada properties.

Last September, the NFL signed DraftKings as its first Daily Fantasy Sports Partner, even as the company was becoming far better known as a sportsbook operator. The NFL even signed its first official wagering partner, although it chose Australia’s Tabcorp, presumably due to the lack of domestic attention such a deal would garner.

The NFL has also decided to allow sports betting to take root in NFL stadiums in states that have legalized wagering. EPSN quoted the league’s chief strategy officer Chris Halpin saying betting windows were still off-limits, but “betting lounges … in an adult discreet area” of the stadium promoting mobile wagering options will no longer twist the NFL’s knickers into an unwaddable bunch.

Halpin said the league was “more and more excited about how sports betting is developing, and we’re now doing more in this space.” However, old habits die hard, so while stadiums featuring betting lounges can promote their availability, signage won’t be permitted in the lower bowls of stadiums.

The NFL is currently looking to hire its first vice-president of sports betting, whose primary task would be maximizing revenue, while also preserving the so-called integrity of the NFL’s games if those revenue-growing responsibilities allow him/her/they some spare time.

The NFL’s long slow march toward betting acceptance likely took some encouragement by the minimal fallout of last season’s nothingburger betting scandal involving one of its players (unsuccessfully) betting against his own team. The NFL has also been pushed on the betting front by the upstart XFL, which has made betting a unique selling point (for the moment, at least) of its broadcasts.

Still, it does seem like the NFL embracing sports betting was one of the tribulations the earth would have to go through in the Book of Revelations. Locusts, start your engines…

The post NFL teams okay to ink betting partners, open ‘betting lounges’ appeared first on CalvinAyre.com.

The government of Wakayama this Thursday published the prefecture’s draft integrated resort implementation policy and launched a consultation period with interested companies that will run through early March.

Wakayama is among the prefectures interested in hosting one of Japan’s first integrated resorts. These are large, multi-purpose complexes that feature a number of different facilities such as hotels, meeting and conference venues, food and beverage outlets, retail space, entertainment facilities, and casinos.

The introduction of integrated resorts comes as part of Japan’s effort to tap into casino gambling, which has proved an extremely lucrative industry in Asia. The country’s central government legalized casino gambling in late 2016 and plans to authorize the development of up to three integrated resorts with casino facilities in three yet-to-be-announced locations around Japan.

• RELATED: Japan Mulls Withhold Tax on Foreigners’ Casino Winnings

The winning prefectures and casino resort developers are expected to become known sometime next year. However, Japan is not likely to have its first resorts before the mid-2020s.

As for Wakayama’s bid to participate in the race for one of the three casino licenses up for grabs, the prefecture’s recently published draft policy outlines what facilities its integrated resort should feature, if it wins a license.

Wakayama lawmakers would expect from the prefecture’s private-sector casino developer partner to build a unique property that would be significantly different from anything that would be offered in the other two Japanese regions which are set to host integrated resorts.

In addition, when the prefecture selects a preferred private-sector partner, it would expect from it to introduce and materialize a concept that leverages on Wakayama’s existing tourism attractions such as natural landmarks, historic sites, hot springs, and very specific food culture.

Request-for-proposal Process to Follow

In its draft policy, Wakayama has also listed the criteria for choosing its casino operator partner for the prefecture’s integrated resort bid.

In addition, Thursday marked the start of a consultation period during which prefecture officials will accept questions and feedback from interested casino operators on the recently published draft policy. The consultation period would run through March 3.

Wakayama officials told regional gaming news outlet GGRAsia that they target late March or early April launch of a request-for-proposal process for companies interested to bid for the right to build an integrated resort in the prefecture.

While officials are yet to select the site that would host the mega-complex, they have previously said that the man-made Marina City island, which is located within Wakayama City, could be where the integrated resort would be built.

The artificial island is located approximately 40 kilometers from Kansai International Airport, a major international travel hub located in Osaka Bay.

Source: Wakayama announces draft IR policy, RFP to follow soon

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to stay up to date on the day’s top casino news stories

The post Wakayama Publishes Casino Resort Implementation Policy appeared first on Casino News Daily.