Yesterday I attended the PGA Tour Shriner’s Hospital Open at TPC Summerlin. The only time I have ever been close to playing TPC Summerlin was as a kid playing it on Links LS. Its a pretty nice course and challenging, but not overwhelmingly beautiful. Just a pretty straight forward tournament players course. It was fun to see some great golfers. I haven’t been to a PGA Tour event in 15 years, so it was awesome to see these guys tee it up. They rip their drives at a totally different level then I’m used to.
I also visited a few of the Boyd Gaming properties in Henderson including Eldorado and Jokers Wild. Shareholders should be asking more about why Boyd still holds these properties. I understand these properties (especially the Eldorado) has some historical signifigance to the Boyd Family and was part of the beginning of where the business is today. But I can’t imagine owning and operating these properties make any positive difference to shareholders. I played $1 craps at Jokers Wild just to have the experience, and I calculated my theo was probably 30 cents?!? Is this profitable for Boyd? How much does the total revenue from Jokers Wild compares to one day at Borgata or Gold Coast or Suncoast??? Owning Jokers Wild is another example of how Boyd Gaming is stuck in the past without a reasonable strategy to grow in the future. There are NO synergies with owning Jokers Wild. The players club is even separate. Boyd needs to re-organize the business like PENN did with a REIT and then prune its domestic properties. Boyd needs to either do something dramatic with its downtown Las Vegas properties or watch revenues in that segment continue to stagnate. Boyd is not doing anything innovative, and sooner or later its luck will run out. If readers need proof, check out Boyd’s share price.
