Anyone care to speculate on the impact on VP of the ownership changes
that are going on? I've lost my scorecard so I might have this wrong,
but I think Harrahs bought Horseshoe and is buying Sheraton, Ballys &
Grand, and will have to divest 2 props of which it chose the current
Harrahs and Ballys.
Changes thus far - a few months prior to Harrahs purchase of the
Shoe, Shoe supposedly cut way back on all their VP to milk money out
the last few months. Horseshoe never has been known for good pay
schedules but this made it even worse. So far, Harrahs hasn't
improved anything since they took over.
Harrah's, the original 25c 9/6 JOB house in Tunica, recently cut back
all but one bank of these machines to 8/5. Again, the word is this is
a move to milk the cash cow prior to turning it over to new
management.
For background, Tunica has seen major improvements in the last year.
A year ago, Harrahs was arguably the best overall with 20-25 9/6 JOB
machines and several 98-99% progressives that frequently became
positive. Then in May, Sheraton opened their Royal room with 3-4 100%
games and 10-12 99%+. Gold Strike followed around Aug with 40-50 MGs
that got up to 100.9% on double points day.
You should also know that Gold Strike, Horseshoe and Sheraton are
adjacent (50-100 feet) properties in that order from left to right,
and that in spite of its crappy pay tables the shoe's VP (and
everything else) has attained a certain cachet in the market so that
its always crowded.
So - will the new Harrahs/Bally owners be hungry for market share,
and maybe launch the next salvo in the currently stalled Tunica VP
War?
Will Harrah's bring decent VP to the Shoe, which already has many,
many progressives and only needs base pay tables better than 94% to
make them occasional plays?
Or will Sheraton cut back closer to the Shoe levels since their under
common ownership?
Or will (as I heard but don't quite believe) the Shoe take over the
Sheraton and combine the two properties into a mega-casino a la The
Grand?
And will Gold Strike respond to the changes next door by making their
VP even better?