Boyd targets three Las Vegas casinos for remodeling efforts
I would have loved to be sitting in a popular Basque restaurant in Elko more than a decade ago when Nevada’s governor walked in for lunch on a holiday weekend with top executives of a multibillion-dollar Malaysian conglomerate. I remind everyone of that story in this week’s newsletter.
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Don’t look for Boyd Gaming to pop up in any casino industry merger or acquisition talks.
CEO Keith Smith said last week the company’s focus is spending $650 million over the next year to renovate many of its 29 properties in 10 states. Boyd has 10,751 hotel rooms nationwide and is refreshing nearly one-third of its total room capacity.
Three of Boyd’s Las Vegas-area properties — Orleans Hotel & Casino, Suncoast Hotel & Casino and a planned new casino replacing the outdated Joker’s Wild in Henderson — are part of the capital expenditure plan.
The 25-year-old Suncoast will see a renovated casino by the end of 2025. The project began last year with a new sportsbook that replaced a showroom on the opposite side of the Summerlin property.
Boyd Chief Financial Officer Josh Hirsberg said last week during an earnings call that customers will notice disruptions during construction. However, the company learned to minimize those issues when it remodeled the Fremont in downtown Las Vegas two years ago.
“It's an elaborate surgery [when] operating [a] live gaming operation,” Hirsberg said. “We’ve done this before. We take little bits and pieces of the casino floor and work our way across it.”
The nearly 1,900-room Orleans will be renovated at the same time as projects at the 1,100-room IP Hotel and Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi, and the 445-room Valley Forge Casino Resort in Pennsylvania. Smith said nearly 60 percent of the company’s hotel rooms will have undergone some type of renovation by 2026.
Hotel rooms are not part of the initial development of Cadence Crossing in Henderson, which will replace Joker’s Wild. Boyd has not released a budget for the property, which will initially have 450 slot machines and several restaurants. However, with plans for 12,000 residences in the neighboring community, additional phases will include a hotel, more casino space and other amenities.
“The good news is that we have plenty of room on the site,” Smith said of the 15-acre location next to Jokers Wild, which will be closed and demolished once the new casino opens in 2026. Employees at Joker’s Wild will transition to Cadence.
A significant chunk of Boyd’s $650 million renovation figure includes estimated initial costs between $120 million and $150 million for the design and development of Boyd’s $750 million hotel-casino in Norfolk, Virginia. The rest of the construction budget will fall into 2026 and 2027.
The expansion of Boyd’s Sky River Casino near Sacramento, which the company manages for the Northern California Wilton Rancheria Tribe, isn’t part of the $650 million spending. The tribe is funding that expansion project. Management fees last year provided $88.4 million of Boyd’s single-year record of $3.9 billion in revenue in 2024.
Boyd’s online gaming segment had the largest revenue jump in 2024 — 43 percent to $606.2 million. The company has online casinos in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Ontario, Canada, and online sports betting in six states through its 5 percent ownership in FanDuel.
Smith said Boyd is “monitoring and paying attention” to online gaming legislation that has been discussed in nearly a half-dozen states. Historically, online gaming bills are often introduced by state lawmakers, but end up dying in session.
Sandoval’s first meeting with Resorts World ownership was in Elko
Monday’s announcement that former Gov. Brian Sandoval was joining Resorts World Las Vegas’ newly created part-time board of directors was not his first interaction with the property’s ownership, Malaysia-based Genting Berhad.
Sandoval, then in his first term as governor, was contacted in 2012 by Genting Chairman K.T. Lim, who wanted to discuss the potential acquisition of the shuttered Echelon project.
That meeting took place on Labor Day weekend 2012 at The Star Hotel and Basque Restaurant in Elko. Sandoval, his staff and the contingent from Kuala Lumpur, which included Lim, dined on chorizo sandwiches.
Six months later, Genting announced it was buying the Echelon site for $350 million. The property opened as the $4.3 billion Resorts World Las Vegas in June 2021. Sandoval, now president of the UNR, attended the opening with his wife, Lauralyn.
Sandoval is joining the board that oversees the 3-year-old Strip hotel-casino. The group is chaired by former MGM Resorts Chairman and CEO Jim Murren and includes former Nevada Gaming Control Board Chairman A.G. Burnett, longtime gaming industry human resources executive Michelle DiTondo and Genting Berhad President Tan Kong Han.
After serving two terms as governor, Sandoval became MGM Resorts’ president of global gaming development in 2018 before resigning in 2020 to apply for the UNR presidency.
In an interview, Sandoval said that as a state employee, he received permission to serve on an outside board through a letter from the chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education.
Las Vegas Grand Prix changes: New start time and a new top executive
In an effort to attract additional visitors and provide a better experience surrounding the Formula One Las Vegas Grand Prix, officials announced that the next race will start at 8 p.m. — two hours earlier than previous races.
The race also has a new top executive. Emily Prazer, chief commercial officer for Formula One, was named president of the Las Vegas race and will lead planning for the 2025 event, scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 22. She has been with the Grand Prix since 2021.
Prazer replaces Renee Wilm, who oversaw the creation of the Las Vegas Grand Prix. Wilm will continue as the chief legal and commercial officer for F1 owner Liberty Media, headquartered in Denver.
Meanwhile, Las Vegas Grand Prix Senior Vice President Lori Nelson-Kraft said in an email the 8 p.m. start time was “based on feedback, insights, and experience from the first two races.”
The earlier start time also covers the Thursday practice and Friday race qualifying sessions, which she said would help with "expanding opportunities for fans to explore the destination.”
While the earlier time slot for the race could help increase viewership in the U.S., European fans will have an early wake-up call for the event, given the new start time will be 4 a.m. in the United Kingdom.
Although visitation associated with the Nov. 23 race was up slightly — less than 1 percent — the 2024 Formula One Las Vegas Grand Prix race didn’t provide the expected business lift that Strip properties experienced from 2023’s inaugural event. During the month, hotel room rates were down more than 21 percent and casino revenue fell by more than 4 percent.
Nelson-Kraft said details on the race and road closure schedules for the 3.8-mile racing circuit’s construction will be shared in the coming months.
What I'm reading
📳 ‘Total disregard’ for the law: Inside Howard Lutnick’s sports betting gambit — Daniel Lippman, Megan Messerly and Betsy Woodruff Swan, Politico
Cantor Gaming repeatedly violated state and federal laws and one top executive pleaded guilty to illegal gambling conspiracy.
👋 Entain chief executive steps down — Steve (Ziv) Chen, CompleteiGaming
Gavin Issacs, a long-time Nevada gaming figure, resigned after just five months as CEO of Entain, which is a 50 percent owner of sports betting operator BetMGM.
💲 America’s battle over DEI strikes a Chicago casino’s financing plan — Katherine Sayre and Theo Francis, The Wall Street Journal
A lawsuit by a conservative activist challenges a plan by Bally’s Corp. to offer casino ownership shares to women and minorities.
News, notes and quotes
🤝 Bally’s completes merger with its largest shareholder
Bally’s Corp., which is planning a hotel-casino alongside the $1.75 billion baseball stadium designated for the Strip, has been bought out by its largest stockholder. In July, Bally’s accepted a $4.6 billion acquisition from Standard General, a hedge fund controlled by the company’s chairman, Soo Kim. The deal closed last week. Bally’s also merged with a small company with casinos in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Marquette, Iowa. In October, Bally’s unveiled initial plans for a 3,000-room resort that would share the 35-acre site on the Strip with the 33,000-capacity ballpark for the relocated Athletics.
💲 Wynn finalizes financing for its UAE development
Wynn Resorts said the company secured $2.4 billion in construction financing from “a global syndicate of lenders" that will allow the company to build the $5.1 billion Wynn Al Marjan Island in Ras Al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates. The 1,542-room project will open in 2027. The transaction represents the largest hospitality financing package in the history of the UAE. Wynn Al Marjan, which was licensed by the UAE’s regulatory authority last year, will be the Emirates' first casino resort.