“Steady” was frequently heard during a truncated (20-minute) third-quarter Bally’s earnings call on November 6. No questions were taken, with executives citing a pending merger with the Queen Casino & Entertainment.
Bally’s permanent Chicago casino site was described by CEO Robeson Reaves as “a hive of activity today in anticipation of the start of construction next year.” He said Bally’s was in talks with the city about revisions to the Bally’s Chicago master plan.
Regarding the Chicago temporary casino at Medinah Temple, President George Papanier said it had hosted 1.3 million guests to date and its database had swelled to 113,000 names. Quarterly admissions, he added, were up six percent and it was gaining market share.
In Las Vegas, “significant planning efforts are underway,” according to Reaves, to begin construction on a new resort concurrent with the start of a Sacramento Athletics baseball stadium. The goal is to open the casino, a hotel, and some retail by the start of the 2028 Major League Baseball season.
“The process remains prolonged,” lamented Reaves of efforts to obtain a megaresort concession at the former Trump Links near the Bronx. He said no proposals would be taken before late June 2025.
In the interactive sphere, Reaves said Bally’s was gaining market share in the United Kingdom, where it’s experiencing all-time-high customer levels. It also dipped a toe into brick-and-mortar U.K. gambling, purchasing Asper’s Casino Newcastle, in Newcastle-on-Tyne, with an eye toward leveraging Bally’s online-player database into it.
The company’s large Asian team had been segregated into a new stand-alone unit that Reaves characterized as operating on a licensing-and-royalty model “with more energy and nimbleness.”
“With an owner’s mentality, we believe they will find opportunities for growth,” summarized CFO Marcus Glover. Shorn of Asia, Bally’s would be focusing on the British Isles, Spain, and the United States.
Of the latter, Reaves said that BallyBet is live in 10 states, with three more coming online in the near future and more expected soon. “Overall, we continue to make progress” toward positive North American return on investment.
Papanier concentrated on terrestrial gaming, saying that the company’s stability therein has been “offset by ongoing headwinds in Rhode Island and Atlantic City.” Highway disruption in Rhode Island, Papanier said, was still troublesome and “likely to continue in the foreseeable future.”
Atlantic City, for its part, had experienced “a challenging quarter,” according to Papanier, due to the loss of Bally’s Boardwalk marketing team. Their replacements, he continued, should deliver results in the coming months and by next summer. “Both our Biloxi and Dover properties were standouts,” he added.
“We remain confident in the resiliency of our customer,” the Bally’s president said. He emphasized continued strength in the high-end and middle-market demographics, while allowing that lower-end and unrated players were “squeezed,” much as at other casino companies.
A Bally’s-sponsored ballot in Missouri to authorize a Lake of the Ozarks casino went down to defeat on election day. Bally’s executives didn’t mention it.
