\nThe Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority, owner of Connecticut\u2019s top-grossing casino, is accelerating its push outside the state as competition threatens to lure more players from its home turf.<\/p>\n
\tThe authority, owned by the state\u2019s 2,000-member Mohegan tribe, delivered a 10,000-page bid last week to New York regulators for a $550 million casino in Thompson, on the site of the former Concord Resort in the Catskills. It\u2019s also proposing to build casinos in Philadelphia and Boston.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThere\u2019s going to be casinos in these places,\u201d said Mitchell Etess, a former Trump executive who has been with the authority for 18 years and became chief executive officer in 2006. \u201cThe key for us is to grow in a way we can manage successfully.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tDoing nothing is a bigger gamble. New venues in nearby states mark a fresh competitive threat to Connecticut\u2019s two casinos, where slot-machine revenue has shrunk by a third since 2006. Business in the state has already been hurt by the addition of slots at horse tracks in New York, casinos in Pennsylvania and, most recently, table games in Rhode Island.<\/p>\n
\tMohegan owns one of the largest casino resorts in the U.S., the 4.5 million-square-foot Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut, 125 miles north of New York City. Connecticut\u2019s slot revenue, from Mohegan and Foxwoods Resort Casino, fell 8 percent to $441 million in the first five months of this year, extending a seven-year slide.<\/p>\n
\tThe authority\u2019s expansion began with the 2006 opening of the Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs in Plains Township, Pennsylvania. It also manages the Resorts Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Still, Connecticut accounted for 78 percent of the authority\u2019s $1.3 billion in revenue last year.<\/p>\n
\t\u2018Capital Light\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\u201cKeeping focused on the Northeast makes the most sense for us,\u201d Etess said in a telephone interview. \u201cIt\u2019s where our brand is most known.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tEtess is pursuing what he calls a \u201ccapital light\u201d growth strategy, looking for partners to help finance projects that amount to more than $2 billion in total.<\/p>\n
\tThe authority, which has about $1.7 billion in debt outstanding, has refinanced its borrowings on multiple occasions since the 2008 recession, extending maturities and removing lender restrictions that limited capital spending.<\/p>\n
\tIn Massachusetts, where it is one of two contenders, along with Wynn Resorts Ltd., for a Boston-area casino, Mohegan has partnered with the New York-based hedge fund Brigade Capital Management LLC, which would own 60 percent of the proposed $1 billion project. Mohegan would own half of the proposed Catskills resort, along with developer Louis R. Cappelli.<\/p>\n
\tCasino Central<\/p>\n
\tEtess said he\u2019s confident Mohegan can come up with its share of the costs.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWe\u2019re not doing anything we can\u2019t afford,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\tThe expansion strategy is far from a sure thing.<\/p>\n
\tWithin a few years, nine new casinos could be battling for gamblers in New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. Already two bidders, Wynn and Penn National Gaming Inc., have dropped out the contest for the downtown Philadelphia project, citing potential saturation. Mohegan, with a 16 percent interest in a $500 million proposal there, is one of four remaining bidders, according to regulatory filings.<\/p>\n
\tMohegan has proven to be a solid casino operator, with a per-slot machine win of $304 a day in 2013, or 24 percent more than Foxwoods, according to Dennis Farrell, an analyst in Charlotte, North Carolina, with Wells Fargo Securities.<\/p>\n
\tThe company has also focused on non-gambling amenities, he said. Its 10,000-seat arena in Uncasville hosted rocker Bruce Springsteen for two concerts in May, and welcomed pop singer Katy Perry this week.<\/p>\n
\tThe ability to draw top acts could give Mohegan a leg up against other bidders, Farrell said.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIf you want a premium experience, Mohegan is a frontrunner for that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
No replies were posted for this topic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority, owner of Connecticut\u2019s top-grossing casino, is accelerating its push outside the state as competition threatens to lure more players from its home turf. The authority, owned by the state\u2019s 2,000-member Mohegan tribe, delivered a 10,000-page…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-casino-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7642\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}