It’s dinner time, and also decision time, at the Cosmopolitan.
The resort’s superior culinary-entertainment destination Superfrico at the Cosmopolitan is an unqualified success. It’s also positioned next to an inventively designed and inconveniently empty Opium/OPM Theater. This venue is at the center of what seems to be a behind-the-scenes competition between Spiegelworld and Cirque du Soleil.
I swept into Superfrico on New Year’s Eve, also checking out the theater, which has been dark for a year since that Spiegelworld stage show “OPM” closed. Founded by Ross Mollison, Spiegelworld runs Superfrico in partnership with MGM Resorts International.
MGM Resorts owns the theater, which abuts the restaurant.
At the end of every year media outlets give the top stories of the year in every field and for every place. Those lists of biggest stories are based on the opinions of reporters, commentators, and analysts. In 2018, for example, I compiled my own list of top gaming stories. Sports betting, new East Coast casinos, “me too” and the demise of Steve Wynn, and REITs were on my list. It was subjective, but certainly sports betting and Steve Wynn would have been on most gaming lists.
The lists came out this year as they always do, but there is a change. This year the list of the most popular stories are measured by clicks, not subjective opinions. CDC Gaming has been using the click system for several years and no longer asks me to compile my version. I am not certain that it is a better system, but it is more democratic. The readers vote; it is the new artificial intelligence way. The methodology has not shaped CDC Gaming’s content yet. But it is shaping the content in local media in many places, like its more commercial version in advertising, where you are given more buying options that are related to your previous purchases.
But I am stuck in the old way. Leafing through my files, I found a couple of columns that still had some life. Ten years ago, my column had some pretty big stories. In Atlantic City, four casinos closed as casino revenue continued to plunge in the wake of the Great Recession and competition from Pennsylvania. Caesars was on the verge of declaring bankruptcy. Its financial woes led to Carl Ichan taking over the company and selling it to Eldorado Resorts. The process took awhile, but today’s Caesars was forged out of that merger. In that year, IGT merged with GTECH, a deal that was finally unwound in 2024.
In general, the Great Recession, while over, was still impacting casino revenues in every respect in Las Vegas, which had a banner year in 2014. During the same year, New York and Massachusetts made progress toward the introduction of casinos, seven in the former, three in the latter. In Asia, Macau hit a wall, crashing into the crackdown by the Chinese government that struck in June, and revenues fell off a cliff. Gaming revenue was $28 billion in 2024; in 2013, it was $45 billion.
Overall, 2014 was a challenging year for the gaming industry. Four years, later the narrative was very different. In 2018, the Supreme Court overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992. As quickly as they could, New Jersey, West Virginia, Rhode Island, Mississippi, and Pennsylvania began taking sports bets. And just as rapidly, the National Basketball Association, National Hockey League, and Major League Baseball signed with gaming partners, while media companies were doing the same thing. Everyone wanted on the bandwagon.
For the last six and half years, that enthusiasm has continued. It is one of the major stories every year. From the beginning in 2018, with five states operating legal sports betting generating $4.5 billion in wagers, it has grown to 33 states reporting $150 billion in handle, $14 billion in gross gaming revenue, and $2.9 billion in taxes in 2024. The totals since its inception are $439 billion in handle, $38 billion in GGR, and $7 billion in taxes.
Also in 2018, there were new casinos in Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey. Two casinos, Hard Rock and Ocean City, reopened with new identities in Atlantic City. Pennsylvania authorized 10 new mini-casinos, VLTs in truck stops, igaming, and sports betting. By the end of the year, it appeared gaming had survived the recession and was back on a growth path. It lasted only two years, but 2018 and 2019 were very strong for gaming. Then, of course, COVID changed gaming dramatically, both in the short and long terms.
Another major development in 2018 was real estate investment trusts (REIT) taking over gaming transactions. Every major transaction in the industry during 2018 included a REIT component. Boyd, MGM, Eldorado, and Caesars all wrapped up deals with REIT partners. Coincidentally, 2025 is predicted by Deutsche Bank analyst Carlo Santarelli to be another REIT year: “We see the deal environment in 2025 primarily serving as a function of the interest-rate environment. We believe a recessionary environment in 2025, should one take shape, could serve as a spark to deal activity with operators more apt to sell and rates likely making accretion more palatable for the gaming REITs.”
And one last story from 2018. In somewhat of a shocker, Steve Wynn left the gaming industry. Steve was caught in the “me too” trap that brought down many high-profile executives. Wynn resigned from the corporation he founded, sold all of his stock, and left town. Phil Satre was called in to rescue the company’s reputation. It worked and Wynn Resorts opened Encore Boston Harbor, had its license renewed in Macau, received a license in the United Arab Emirates, and is in a good position for one of three licenses for New York City. In a way, 2014 and 2018 have had long shelf lives. Both were still alive in 2024 and appear to be headed to make an impression in 2025.
