Land-based casino gambling a taken a rather large hit in the past couple years due to the recession. Recently revenue generated at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas and Laughlin dropped nearly 15.1% to $56.5 million. Rather than taking responsibility for itself, the Golden Nugget has blamed the second quarter findings on competitors and customers who are unwilling to spend their money.
According to Tilman Fertitta , Landry’s President and Chief Executive Officer stated, “I feel very good about restaurant hospitality; I do not feel very good about gaming.”
The drop that occurred in the second quarter of this year for Landry’s Hotel and Casino showed a significant decrease from $308.1 million at this time last year compared to $282 million this year in the second quarter. The share earnings also significantly decreased from $.74 down to $.23.
Along with the Golden Nugget casinos, Landry’s owns 175 restaurants as well as amusement parks. As the CEO mentioned he is not concerned about the revenue generated by the restaurants, merely the revenue generated by the casinos.
After hurricane Ike struck last year in Galveston Texas, many of Landry’s restaurants needed to be closed. The timing of this event coincided with a decline in the economy therefore affecting the company. This decline caused many gamblers to stay away from casinos and possibly convince more to join online casinos. The restaurants did recover through a series of promotions and advertisements.
“At Saltgrass, we did do some advertising that tremendously helps,” said Fertitta. “We had pulled back a lot of advertising because we didn’t know necessarily if it would pay for itself.”
Another area that the casino company is being hurt is in trying to be competitive with other established casinos. At the economy has become depressed many casinos have lowered their rates in an attempt to draw in more customers during these meager times. “You ought to go online and look at some of these rates and packages you can get,” Fertitta said. “That is where we are just being murdered, trying to be competitive with the MGM and the Bellagio.”
