Two Way Hard Three | Las Vegas Casino & Design Blog

Great post. I agree that MGM Grand's casino looks and "feels" much larger than Bellagio's. Venetian's casino has also felt larger to me than Bellagio's. Steve Wynn designed his gaming floors as intimate spaces regardless of the square footage.

I can't believe Genting would have 800,000 sq ft of gaming floor as the Miami Herald said. One story said the 250,000 sq ft casino would be in a separate building and would be the VIP casino. No one needs a VIP casino that size. When the dust settles, I bet that none of the South Florida casinos will be larger than 150,000 to 200,000 sq ft.

Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff, one of the sponsors of the Florida Bill said it's designed to start a dilaogue about the future of gaming in Florida. I hope someone listens to you and lets the market sort it all out.. There's got to be fairness for the existing racinos to be able to compete, and the Seminoles aren't going to go away. Since they're allowed to have the same games as commercial casinos, I'm sure they'll welcome the addition of craps and roulette. Three casinos in Miami and Broward counties won't affect the Seminole Hard Rocks in Hollywood and Tampa, and the expanding Coconut Creek Casino will draw customers from both Palm Beach County and western Broward. Then, if the highway from Fort Myers to Immokalee is ever improved, the Seminoles will build a Hard Rock type casino with hotel there to serve Naples, Fort Myers and Cape Coral. When the Seminoles were lobbying for the Compact, they talked about a 1,500 rooom hotel at Coconut Creek and a large hotel at Immokalee. I believe both are coming and won't be affected by what happens in Miami. This site was used to lobby for the Compact, but I expect the Seminoles to build a hotel within a year at Coconut Creek. http://jobsforflorida.com/files/ITF_iconic4.php

At the end of the day, Genting's project will probably approximate Venentian/Palazzo plus Sands Convention Center, and the others will be similar.

I'm a Florida retiree, and although I have no mobility issues, it's a hassle to drive to and in Miami. I'd be happiest if CET buys Gulfstream Park and the Village at Gulfstream and expands it. It's a great location for both north Miami and south Broward. http://www.thevillageatgulfstreampark.com/

The only sort of statutory size requirement regarding development of casinos that ever made sense to me (at least in theory) was what Atlantic City did originally, which was to require that to have a casino you also had to have at least a 500 room hotel, in order to spur (re)development and attempt to create a large enough base of hotel rooms to attract overnight visitors and (presumably) conventions. Of course, we all know how well that worked out for Atlantic city, so its arguable that these types of limitations really don't help spur development in the way they're intended, even if those intentions are (or were) good...

I've been to Foxwoods many times, and no, it is not an easy place to get around at all. It is very easy to get lost in there.

Also, as an east coaster (Philadelphia 'burbs) who still visits Las Vegas, I'm skeptical whether or not Vegas-style gaming in Florida will take off, and think it may turn out to be somewhat of a bust, for several reasons. First of all, the East coast is now saturated with local casinos. And almost anyone who wants to visit Florida from the northeast can & already does visit Florida whenever they want, so I don't know if having a big casino down there is going to draw any additional domestic visitors; maybe Europeans and South Americans, who knows. But unless enough casinos are developed to compete with Las Vegas in terms of number and diversity of offers, would a new Miami mega casino really draw a lot of new visitors? After all, if East coasters, Europeans & South Americans want to gamble in the tropics, Puerto Rico has had casinos for decades. There's already Atlantis in the Bahamas. I'm pretty sure there's gambling on other caribbean islands, and I don't know, but I'd guess there's probably at least somewhere in South America you can gamble, if not many places. So does building mega casino-resorts in Miami really offer all that much in terms of creating a new market or serving an underserved one? After all, its not like the Miami area (or Southeastern Florida in general) suffers from a dearth of large-scale luxury hotels and resorts as it is...perhaps legalized gambling in Florida would make more sense in providing local casinos for the old folks, not investing billions in mega resorts that might not attract the crowds the developers are expecting...

The original business model for Atlantic City (and to a lesser extent Las Vegas) worked best when gambling wasn't something most of the country could do within a half-hours drive. The Northeastern US is now saturated with casinos, beyond just rinky-dink "locals" casinos; some of them, like Foxwoods & Mohegan Sun, Borgata, French Lick (to name just a few) are already full scale resort experiences already. We all see what the proliferation of domestic legalized gambling has done to Atlantic City, and the looming threat of what it and the growth of Macau, Singapore, and other international markets might indeed be doing to Las Vegas as well; is diluting the market with yet another epicenter for large-scale resort based casino gambling really such a good idea, or is it just cutting an already fully-baked pie into smaller and smaller slices? Or is it going to turn out like City Center - a huge investment of capital resulting in a questionable return? I guess we'll find out...

That being said, let me backtrack to what I started saying about being an east coaster who still chooses to visit las vegas, which is that I don't like Florida! I've spent a lot of time there (my parents had a winter home in the equestrian-oriented community of Wellington (west of West Palm Beach) when I was growing up) growing up, and I'm not a fan of humidity, so one of the reasons I like to visit Vegas is the desert climate & scenery, though what really still pulls me to Vegas is just the sheer diversity of offerings in terms of hotels, great restaurants, etc...so for me personally, resort casinos in Miami wouldn't pull me away from Vegas. If I wanted to gamble in the tropics, I'd go to Puerto Rico. So when they talk about siphoning off gamblers from Las Vegas with a shorter flight, or creating a new market where there wasn't one before, I have to argue, as a "premium" gambler from the northeast, aren't I presumably the type of person they're hoping is going to patronize these Miami casinos? They'd have to build something really spectacular down there to make me want to put up with all the things I hate about Florida to get me down there, and I have a feeling I'm not the only one who feels this way...at the most, all I see them doing is cannibalizing the people who already gamble in Puerto Rico, or on cruises, and to a certain extent, some people who do go to Vegas. But I could be wrong...

Okay, I realize I'm all over the map here, just thinking as I'm typing, so I'll stop rambling now...

With gambling and resorts in the carribean, plus tribal gaming and Atlantic City, I don't see Miami as a big threat to Las Vgas. There might be a bump for the first quarter, but I think people west of Atlanta will still see Las Vegas as THE City.

It's going to be interesting to watch Genting's performance at Resorts World New York which opens today. It's certainly not anything close to what's planned for Miami, but we'll see how good an operator they are in the U.S.

Bigdaddyj, I love Florida. Maybe I'm a stereotypical Floridian because I'm much older than you, but at this time in my life, I can't imagine living anywhere else. Maybe it was 60+ years of never seeing the sun from November to May in Detroit.
Btw, your parents must have been in Glenn Straub's development?

Here's the NY Times story on Resorts World NY:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/nyregion/new-yorks-first-casino-at-aqueduct-racetrack-is-set-to-open.html?tntemail0=y&_r=1&emc=tnt&pagewanted=all

Jeff, I'm close enough to the Bahamas for day trips to Nassau, but it just doesn't appeal to me. I'd rather go to resorts here.

Great stuff, I'm shocked that Riviera's casino floor is that large, I would have put it down as one of the smaller floors on the strip. Although in it's case, I think the feeling of 'small' doesn't equal 'intimacy'. I would also agree that the Bellagio floor is better laid out then MGM and feels smaller then MGM.

I've seen some of the Twitter discussion with you on Florida casinos. I do believe it has the potential to be the one market that could seriously injure Las Vegas. AC was always billed as the east coast alternative, but as has been pointed out accessibility for much of the East coast sucks for AC. Florida doesn't have that problem, and flights are more accessible, available, and cheaper. Add in what could be considered better weather and Las Vegas could have serious issues, as there mid-high roller class that typically comes in once a month or so, can just do their weekends down in Florida.

Thankfully for Las Vegas, it appears that Florida's going to build casinos in the same way the rest of the country has, which is built on the premise of using them as tax revenue, rather then have any concern over their prosperity or ability to integrate into the city and allow them to grow through means like competition and investment.

Last point, and coming back to the Twitter discussion, your point was that LV needs to continue focusing on the amenities it's been bringing to market in the last 5-10 years, and I do think it's their best course to compete with whatever Florida brings to market. They shouldn't have to worry much though, as it doesn't appear that Florida's government is going to get out of it's own way.

Las Vegas has a greater density of casinos than any other US market besides (arguably) Atlantic City. There's just more for casino-minded folks to do here.

That's a strength Vegas needs to continue to build on.

MGM Grand feels so long because it's rectangular rather than square and you have to walk through the whole thing every time you want to go to your room!

Having been to the Hard Rock in Fort Lauderdale, it's a pretty long drive to get there from the coast with no freeway available. If the Miami casino is centrally located, it could certainly pull people away from the Hard Rock.

Great article and interesting conversation.
Personally, I'd love to see this built. Although, I echo the skepticism of other posts. I wonder what the casino square footage is of Genting Malaysia?
I was also surprised MGM isn't the largest... Walking from the strip to your room seems like miles.

Briguyx, you're right. Seminole Hard Rock is in a lousy location on reservation land surrounded by pawn shops, tool & die companies, etc. It does border the Florida Turnpike. Several years ago, the Seminoles told Florida they would pay a large percentage of the cost of a Turnpike exit ramp on Stirling Road next to the casino, but the state declined the offer. Seminole Paradise's clubs generate a lot of traffic as does Hard Rock Live which has concerts/shows every week during season. Regional and tribal casinos are the best thing that ever happened to "has been" entertainers. Some of the concerts are excellent.
http://www.hardrocklivehollywoodfl.com/

@detroit - yes, my parents had a home in the PBPCC from 1985-1994.

Also, I totally understand your love of Florida, I was just stream-of-consciousness rambling about the ideas of casinos in Florida and the fact that I prefer the desert to the tropics, so for me, as an east coast gambler, it would still be more worth it to take that 5-and-a-half hour flight to Nevada over the 2-and-a-half hour flight to Florida...

Dave: The Grand Lisboa in Macau may be around 400,000 - 500,000 square feet. It was the largest casino floor I had ever seen, then I went up an escalator and there was another casino floor of identical size.

Venetian Macau may be on the same scale.

The WinStar Casino (an hour north of Dallas at the state line) is 519,000 sf. Built out of cash flow, in 5 or more stages, it doesn't feel as big as MGM Grand (I guess that's a compliment to one of them). But it's big. I mean Texas sized BIG! It's damned exhausting just walking back and forth a couple times. Traffic and parking isn't bad because the Chickasaw tribe owns everyting around it for a few miles and they paid for good hiway exits. Plus the hotel is only 400 rooms.
I can't imagine something over twice that size (including several thousand more hotel rooms) being stuck in an already dense area of Miami without traffic being a nightmare. Wouldn't it be like going to the Orange Bowl 24/7?

Jeff in OKC,
are you certain the casino floorspace at WinStar is that large? That would make it larger than Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun; which I always thought were the #1 and #2 largest casinos in the country.

Posted by Hunter

This 2007 article about the expansion refers to a completed size of 300,000 square feet.

This one says Winstar's gaming floor is 380,000 sq ft.
http://500nations.com/Oklahoma_Casinos_Largest.asp

I'll ask a buddy who is pretty connected with Chickasaw management. They added the east-west section in the last 2-3 years and it is, by far, the largest single expansion to date. That is the expansion that connected the north-south casino to the hotel. The current project is the multiple-level parking garage and new entertainment venue, which I think I heard is several thousand seats.
Guys, by far this is the closest casino to the Dallas-Fort Worth market. Which is one of the 10 biggest in the United States. The Chickasaws have, IMO, built on the cheap. Much of the casino has a canvas roof. They don't want to have too big a capital investment in case Texas legalizes casino gaming, but they want to milk as much as they can from the (so far) insatiable north Texas market.

The casino will undoubtedly include the various bars, stages, delis, foot courts, players desks, etc. One can always rip out something and add something else, but the trick is to play the construction loan card properly.