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Week of August 6, 2002 |
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HOLLYWOOD CASINO
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TUNICA, Miss., August 6 (UPI) -- The Hollywood Casino sits
at the end of the road.
It's a nice road, four lanes all the way, but of the ten
casinos in Tunica--America's third largest gambling destination
after Vegas and Atlantic City--the Hollywood is the one that has
to fight and scrap a little more, and for a simple reason. If you
set out from Memphis, the only large city for miles in any
direction, you have to drive right by nine other gambling joints
before you get here.
And that's a shame, actually, because the Hollywood is one
of the true class acts in the riverboat states. Just like its
sister casinos in Shreveport, Louisiana, and Aurora, Illinois,
Hollywood/Tunica tries to create a total Las Vegas gambling
experience, complete with all the amenities, in a market that's
more accustomed to cheap cocktails in plastic cups.
"We do everything we can," says Mary Beth Felty, the
casino's "VIP specialist." "Direct mail appeals. Better payout--
we've got 98 per cent machines all through the casino, and we've
had that for three years. Cash back on your players card. We've
started giving away cruises to Atlantis in the Bahamas. But it's
a tough market. There are slots wars all the time."
What? Slots wars at the Hollywood? The Hollywood casinos in
other states are aggressively oriented toward the big-ticket
gambler, so it's a little disconcerting to see the Hollywood in
Tunica duking it out with Fitzgerald's and the Sheraton--widely
perceived as being at the very bottom of the market--for day-
trippers.
They do tend to market to the richer slots player, the one-
dollar player with an average bet of $2.50, as opposed to the
nickel-droppers across the street at the Isle of Capri.
Nevertheless, it's clear that the Hollywood here has had to adapt
to its market and become a little less than it would otherwise
be. There just aren't many high rollers out there these days.
Whenever I describe the Hollywood casinos to someone who's
never seen them, it's hard to get the idea across that "movie
memorabilia"--the theme of this chain--can be exciting. It sounds
like the sort of thing you see in any suburban shopping mall. But
it's not just any artifacts--it's things like Dorothy's ruby
slippers from "The Wizard of Oz," which are circulated from
casino to casino, and the motorcycle from "Easy Rider." It's the
memorabilia that is loved even by people who hate memorabilia.
"Our theme is not like anything you'll find in any of the
regional markets," says Ed Pratt, one of the Dallas-based Pratts
who own the Hollywood chain. "We're the first truly Las Vegas-
style facility in theming in both Tunica and Shreveport. Our
memorabilia and uniforms are the best you'll find. It's really
clever and really fun."
Like the company's other casinos, the theme is 1930s Art
Deco Hollywood, with motion picture artifacts featured in all the
restaurants, lobbies, foyers, walkways and gaming areas. On the
day I visit, the entrance to the gaming floor is dominated by a
replica of The Titanic that was actually used in the movie--not a
miniature, a 6,000-pound scale model, complete with its own moat.
Nearby is the DeLorean from "Back to the Future," which recently
replaced the Batmobile, and across from that is the car Elvis
drove in the movie "Spinout." Elvis is obviously big in Tunica--
it's located not far from his two favorite hangouts, Tupelo and
Memphis--and so they have a lot of his jumpsuits and other
costumes. Suspended from the ceiling is the biplane from "North
by Northwest," the Harrier jet from "True Lies," and the B-17
used in "Memphis Belle."
Fairbanks, the casino's steakhouse, is decorated with
Douglas Fairbanks Sr.'s memorabilia from the movie "Don Q, Son of
Zorro," but, more important, it's consistently rated the top
restaurant in Tunica. (I tried it and would say it's great by
Tunica standards, very good by Memphis standards. The best thing
about it is the wine list.) The Hollywood is also the only casino
in the market to have a special lounge for high-ticket table
games--"high" being a relative term in Tunica, meaning a $25 per
hand betting minimum.
What they don't have--and what the other two Hollywood
casinos are famous for--is much entertainment to speak of. (The
Aurora casino was launched by Frank Sinatra in 1993, the
Shreveport casino by Tony Bennett in 2000.) They have a faux-
tropical-jungle lounge that books local acts on weekends only,
and they have headliner shows twice a year in their thousand-seat
ballroom. (Chely Wright was there earlier this year. In the past
they've booked David Allan Coe, Debbie Reynolds and Paul Anka.)
This puts them in the position of sending their big gamblers to
other casinos--mainly the Horseshoe, the Grand and Sam's Town--
when big names are in town, or else ferrying people into Memphis
for arena shows.
The only other things they have for the affluent gambler are
an indoor pool and spa complex, and a Scottish-style golf course
called River Bend Links that they share with the nearby Harrah's
and Sam's Town casinos. Otherwise it's an 85 per cent slots
business, with everyone arriving by car, mostly from within a
100-mile radius, but sometimes from as far away as Oklahoma. The
visits are short--about three hours--and it's the kind of market
where the buffet is a loss leader; they'll give away a lot of
food to get people through the front door.
Still, if anyone can beat these odds, it's the Pratt family.
Pratt brothers Jack, William and Edward were originally
hotelkeepers, opening their first property in 1967 in their
hometown of Mineral Wells, Texas. Over the next ten years they
got into hotel franchising, developing and managing properties
all over the states, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America.
Then they stumbled into gambling in 1977 when they bought the
Holiday Inn Condado Plaza in San Juan, Puerto Rico. "It had an
8,000-square-foot casino already there," says Pratt. "So we ran
that for three years and we discovered we were making more on the
casino than on the rooms."
They had the gambling bug, and by 1980 they had entered the
booming Atlantic City market. Using the same management team that
now runs the Venetian in Las Vegas, they operated the feisty
little Sands until 1997. But by that time they had decided they
wanted out of the big casino cities--the Sands was always a small
player in a pond that kept getting bigger--and six midwestern
states made their decision easier by legalizing gambling in the
early nineties. In 1993 they landed the lucrative license for
Aurora, Illinois, and then followed that up with a 1994 license
in the boom city of Tunica.
If they had it to do over again, they probably would have
built farther to the north, but they were so early into the
market that they couldn't have predicted how many casinos would
out-flank them. When the Hollywood opened, on August 8, 1994, it
was in the hottest "cluster" in the area, an area called Casino
Strip. Harrah's, Southern Belle and Sam's Town were already
there, but the same week that Hollywood opened, the Sheraton
opened a few miles to the north in an even more convenient
"cluster" that would eventually include the Horseshoe and Circus
Circus (now the Gold Strike).
Development, in other words, was leapfrogging up the river,
ever closer to Memphis, and just as Casino Strip killed the four
original riverboats at Mhoon's Landing to the south, they were in
turn devastated by developments beyond their control, especially
the construction of the largest casino in the market, the Grand,
located right on Tunica County's northern line.
Fortunately the Pratts know how to play this game. "In the
new gaming venues we really excel," says Pratt. "So we decided to
concentrate on that. This is our forte. The problem with it is
that licenses are limited and hard to come by."
Fortunately the riverboat casinos aren't as affected by
September 11th as Vegas has been. "The emerging markets always
hold up better in a recession," says Pratt. "Plus we saw Las
Vegas as a game we didn't want to play. You can build a billion-
dollar project there and get single digit returns on your
investment, or you can spend $250 million in an emerging market
and get 25 per cent returns. Those are your only choices. You
can't be a small player in Las Vegas. You either get as big as
they are or you sell out to them. We operate better in these
markets. This is our niche, like Station Casinos has the locals
niche in Vegas."
Despite being at the end of the road, Hollywood hasn't done
badly. Wall Street ranks it fourth in the market, behind the
Horseshoe, the Grand and the Gold Strike, and it's showing about
$116 million a year in net revenues on an initial capital
investment of $120 million. Part of that investment was in a
luxury hotel wing, which I highly recommend, but $5 million of it
was also in a casino floor attraction called "Adventure Slots,"
which seems to have outlived its novelty.
The idea is that a special high-limit slots area is designed
like the caverns and warrens in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of
Doom," complete with fire-breathing totems and golden mummies.
But the fire was out. "Everyone had sort of seen the fire," said
a slightly embarrassed casino executive. "You have to keep these
things fresh."
The great thing about the Hollywood, for a tourist, is that
you won't find a property this upscale for these kinds of prices
($29 for a room is not uncommon) anywhere else in the country.
They built a palace where they only needed a feudal castle, and
the result--for those willing to drive all the way to the end of
the road--is casino nirvana. Take advantage. Check in.
* © Copyright 2002 United Press International and Joe Bob Briggs |