Two Way Hard Three | Las Vegas Casino & Design Blog

Posted by detroit1051

I didn't have a chance to listen to the LVS conference call this afternoon, but a report I got on it was certainly bullish. I agree with comments here and on Vegaslists.com about all the shoddy workmanship at LV Venetian, but imo, Adelson and Weidner are excellent operators. Weidner is a real star.
Las Vegas:
* Venetian is doublng its private gaming area to six tables; three presidential suites are being renovated; floors 34-36 will be devoted to VIP's.
* All of Venetian's rooms will be renovated.
* 36 table poker room will open this spring.

Macau:
* Macau Sands' table drop is up to $11.3 million per Quarter, $2 million more than a year ago.
Slot volume rose 73%. LVS believes in slot market's potential.
* LVS has commitments from 85 retailers, 35% of available retail space.
* Developing master plan for island next to(?) Cotai Strip; could ultimately have 50 million sq ft of residential/mixed use development. Could begin as early as this summer.
* 25 million additional mainland Chinese will be permitted to visit without visas by May '06. This will bring total to 250 million. That's an amazing number. (I don't understand the visa business. Perhaps chris can educate me.)
* Airport capacity will double by '07.

The Reuters report said,
"Table game revenue in Las Vegas rose 17.6 percent to $320.4 million, while slot machine volume fell 6.2 percent to $523 million, the company said."
Slots have always been a weak link at Venetian. The slot floor is chaotic, and the high limit slot area is depressing. The person in charge should walk across the street to see how Wynn does it.

To be honest, I get a little tired of all the 'bad talk' about The Venetian. Okay, there's a lot of faux in the construction, the place will fall down, etc. - But I've always found the Venetian dealers to be very friendly compared to the 'stone face' dealers at Bellagio. And it might be my hotel of choice for a few visits this year.

The new poker room at the Venetian is a bigger deal than many non-poker players know about. Some higher limit players have been looking to move their action away from Bellagio because there's not enough anonymity. i.e. If you sit down at a high-limit poker game at Bellagio, the next day your name appears in a dozen poker blogs. - Plus with Wynn's poker room picking up bigger games these days and the renewed popularity of The Mirage poker room, most of the 'big action' will be at that part of the Strip.

I still think WYNN is a solid stock, and I'm waiting for those Q4 '05 numbers coming out Feb. 23rd, but LVS could surprise me with this new stock offering they announced. Like always, we'll just have to see...

Posted by Hunter

Honestly, when Palazzo opens it shows that they learned from and fixed the mistakes at The Venetian, I'll be a lot nicer to them... If they do the same old thing again then the criticism will certainly stand. We'll see.

2/23 will certainly be interesting.

Posted by detroit1051

2/23 is the day I check into Wynn. I'll see if I hear any comments after the numbers are released.

Doug, I stayed at Venetian for the first time last fall. My three days were very enjoyable. I especially liked the restaurants. AquaKnox was outstanding. It sounds to me that Weidner will follow through on renovating Venetian so it'll be completed by the time Palazzo opens.

Posted by Hunter

Yeah, The Venetian has excellent dining. One of my favorite restaurants in the city, year after year is Delmonico. Always a winner.

Until a few years ago, Chinese mainlanders could only travel overseas if they did so as part of pre-arranged tours through designated tour operators, and only to limited destinations (like HK, Singapore etc). It was also rather difficult to get a passport for most Chinese. However, a few years ago residents of a small number of richer areas (like Shanghai) were given the freedom to travel overseas individually and whenever / wherever they liked. The individual traveller scheme has since been expanded to other regions and continues to expand. Basically it means a lot more people with a lot more freedom to travel wherever they want - and HK / Macau are the two closest / easiest places for them to get to.

I'm very much looking forward to spending this weekend in Macau and will probably spend some time at the Sands late on Saturday night, as well as the recently opened Grand Emperor. Will see if I can smuggle my digital camera in (they have metal detectors at the entrance).