On July 1st, 2008, the gambling industry is finding it hard to cope up as casino gaming profits continue to fall down. The Crown Casino from Melbourne and Star City Casinos in Florida are feeling the effect of the weakening economy, both failing to attract customers from the suburban area to play poker and card games.
Mr. Jackson from J.P. Morgan commented that he believed that Crown's largest Australian casino facility has greatly suffered from declining customers this year, which if allowed to prosper, would put Crown in rock bottom. Star City, which is owned by Tabcorp, was also having a hard time attracting customers to gaming floor, which also caused the company to experience a lot of difficulty for the year.
There is also real danger that if this trend continues, the $300 million renovation for the casino will be suspended. He said that Jupiters, the casino facility of Tabcorp in the Gold Coast, could also be affected with the weakening economy as it relies heavily on tourists from Queensland or the interstate. He added that the Crown Casino usually relies on their loyalty programs to attract Melbourne-based players to go to the casino.
For every point drop of Crown's Melbourne gaming profits, the parent organization's net profit drops by 1.3%. Fortunately for the Crown organization, its Burswood casino facility in Perth is capitalizing on the ongoing mining boom and is the main driver for higher profit predictions for the 2008-2009 fiscal year. The reports comes amid fears over casino profits in the United States, with domestic airline providers scaling down flights to Las Vegas and fewer spending by players who visit the gambling capital.
The latest Macau gaming profit and visitor figures released just last week were also lower than expected. This is not good news for poker machine manufacturer Aristocrat Leisure as dropping profits means that casinos will not have enough money to replace poker machines. The shares of Crown closed around 8c yesterday at $9.29 and Tabcorp closed at 13c to $9.81. The shares of Aristocrat closed at 2c to $6.42.
07/17/2008 03:55 PM
Davis Coulter