Reports of Buying or Building Las Vegas Casinos Are 99.9% Bull $?!?

Just a word of caution here: don’t believe every press announcement about a developer creating the latest-and-greatest casino to hit the strip since Bugsy Siegel. Seriously, I believe that the majority of these announcements are B.S.

???????????That is not to say that the developer doesn’t “believe” … just as surely as there is belief in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Reckoning. But, alas, believing doesn’t pay the electric bill.

Consider the recent announcement from LVCVA President and CEO Steve Hill that “The land sale to developer Claudio Fischer did not close on Dec. 15. As a result, the LVCVA terminated the agreement, received the $7 million nonrefundable deposit, and relisted the property.”

???????????Yeah, yeah, I know. The economy changed. Interest rates went up. The key investor pulled out. I had to wash my car that day. What EVER.

I have used all of those explanations and a few more creative ones as well. Much better than “the dog ate my homework”, how do you like “my key investor got a terminal disease”?

???????????Look, I am a developer myself; and this certainly is not a criticism of the Chilean-airline-pilot-turn-mogul. Often, we developers are like the religiously blindly-devout; we are believers. Of course, our ranks sometimes are infiltrated with the Jim Bakker’s and Joe Osteen’s; but for most of us, the hokum we spread is born of wide-eyed naive faith rather than malicious confidence schemes.

Nonetheless, the outcome is the same: over-the-top promises of even MORE over-the-top casinos.

???????????I am certain that when some of these wild development promises are made, the developer truly believes that financing is either in place or coming “any day now”. ?Hell, I have been either a victim or purveyor of those dreams myself … repeatedly.

???????????So, the announcements keep coming. I mean, really, over the years how many times have we heard that the storied Moulin Rouge Hotel-Casino is making a comeback (even though it was only ever open for five months in 1955)? Should we see a “red flag” at the $12-million-an-acre price tag asked for Strip land? Remember Xanadu? London? The Titanic? Desert Kingdom? Country Land? Echelon Place? The Playboy? I am sure some seriously-in-the-trenches Vegas-focused journalist like Corey Levitan could report the stories of those never-came-to-fruition casinos, along with many-many others.

???????????All of that aside, the Vegas miracle is that the glowing city in the desert has always been the land of reinvention, or seemingly impossible spectacle creations, and great fortunes rising out of barren dirt. And as B.F. Skinner correctly noted, intermittent reinforcement creates belief stronger than constant reinforcement. So, for every 100 Moulin Rouge dreams a real-life Luxor is erected. Intermittent reinforcement.

???????????My point then?

???????????Just don’t believe every cock-and-bull announcement about the gods-gift of the next Vegas development projects. Oh, and for my journalist friends; for Pete’s sake, make a couple of verification calls before you buy into a well-written press release (regardless of what impressive name is tied to it).

???????????Seriously, about 99% of announcements about great, new, wonderful, best-est-ever casino-hotel-resorts are pretty much bull droppings.

THIS is why I cynically vet, re-vet, and and scoff at most calls I get from wanna-be casino "investors". Bah Humbug. BUT... some MIGHT BE real...