Comments on: MGM's Biggest Bet

By: Cindy Lou Who

Cindy Lou Who — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:15:21 +0000

City Center – more of the same. It will be a complete flop. And the residential tower will never be over 20% owner-occupied.

By: keith

keith — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:45:45 +0000

i personally think the “killer app” should be a strip club inside the casino. why not be the first?

i would prefer a legal brothel in the casino, but i guess we won’t have that until Rex becomes mayor/overlord.

By: Tom

Tom — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 05:06:14 +0000

To me the test of whether I like a new casino hotel is the answer to this question; Do the physical surrondings and the employees make me feel wanted, or do the place have the attitude that it is so cool that I should love it? After the newness is over the comfortable feeling of being wanted better still be there. Biggest can be a negative.

By: mad dog

mad dog — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:23:45 +0000

Why did they black out your web address on their sign?

By: Huddler

Huddler — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 14:14:54 +0000

I always knew Rex was a size queen!

By: FoolsGold

FoolsGold — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:33:49 +0000

>they will offer single deck blackjack with 95% penetration, full pay video poker, and single 0 roulette.
Only because they feel they have to do so.
Perhaps as part of their attempt to snag the Venetian crowd but also perhaps they’ve looked at “M” and seen the writing on the wall about a return to the days of Benny Binion’s “Good Gamble”.

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:44:51 +0000

The CC is an ugly conglomeration of generic steel and glass. Any of these buildings could be in any downtown area not stand out. The project will ultimately be perceived as an also ran. Factoring in the size and inaccessible layout it will fizzle after its initial infatuation period. The good news is that they will offer single deck blackjack with 95% penetration, full pay table video poker, and single 0 roulette.

By: Double Down Now

Double Down Now — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:30:51 +0000

Am I the only one who thinks CC is ugly as hell? I mean what kind of tourist wants to gamble in an office buildin’ like see at home every day? That being said I’ll definitely check it out when I’m in town for NYE! LOL

By: BeeeJay

BeeeJay — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:58:05 +0000

MGM-Mirage has a well designed marketing plan, but their front line employees are consistantly poor at execution across all their properties.

I expect City Center to be no different.

In these difficult times, and the far more difficult times just around the corner, City Center is positioned to succeed. But ultimately that will depend both on the overall concept and the front line execution. I think if they can nail both they will do well not just by canabalizing other properties in their ownership group, but by taking market share from Wynncore, Palazzo/Venetian, and Caesars.

Obviously for MGM-Mirage to succeed they are going to have to take some market share. If they could tweak their marketing plan to mimic Harrah’s at the low end, they could crush that demographic with their relatively better properties. If they can properly execute at the high end with City Center they can steal some disenfranchised Wynn and Palazzo customers.

I feel like they will succeed on concept, they will get a lot of people to give them a shot. I suspect they will fail miserably on execution. A lot of people will have bad initial experiences and there is potential for some piling on to occur.

If its any indication of my confidence in MGM-Mirage to manage an opening of this size, I actually had a reservation at Aria for opening night, but moved it over to Bellagio spa tower. The experience is going to come down to front line single employee-customer interactions and my experience has been that this is the companies biggest weakness.

By: FoolsGold

FoolsGold — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 04:18:25 +0000

City Center will have Adjectives!!
All the press releases will use lots of adjectives. They always do.
Yeah, the novelty wears off. That morning sun eventually shows Maggie Mae’s age. Or atleast you just finally start to notice it some day.

Will it succeed? Beats me. Why don’t you ask the dealers who applied for jobs there? Oh I don’t mean the dealers who were out of work or who were getting tokes so low they might as well have been out of work. I mean ask the employed dealers who were given the option of transferring to City Center or staying where they were. Now see whether those dealers jumped at the chance without any hesitation whatsoever or whether those dealers decided to take the chance but were not particularly ecstatic and not particularly convinced they would be seeing miles and miles of high rollers lineing up to get to City Center and spend their money nowhere else but City Center.

Mirage proved you could build a great big mega casino and make a mint. Mirage was a long time ago. Maybe the rule holds true still. There is always someone in last place. Most real estate projects are financed through the developer’s downpayment and the bank’s later committments to advance funds. The banks HAVE to invest that money. They hope that interim changes have not altered the situation, but the economy is different and the times are different.

Will someone soon be finding out that City Center is really and truly great or will they just be finding out that “Hey, man… its a casino. Its got flashing lights and jangling slot machines and you can get a free drink there.” Beats me. Its aimed at the upscale market, but markets shift.
If it succeeds, the developers were visionary. If it fails, the developers will still claim to be visionaries but the banks and shareholders won’t be overly impressed.