Business hasn’t been rosy blooms for American Casino and Entertainment Properties and the recent financial returns have done little to change that perception. The US casino operator recently reported a growth in its net loss in the fourth quarter of the 2012 fiscal year, a problem it blames on lagging hotel occupancy and the overall decline in gaming revenue in Las Vegas.
According to the Las Vegas Review Journal, American Casino’s properties fared incredibly poorly in the last quarter of the year, accounting for losses amounting to $8.3 million. If the mere fact that its bleeding money isn’t enough, that figure is actually worse than the $7.7 million the operator lost in the same time last year. Likewise, net revenue in the quarter dropped by 3.1 percent to just $79 million.
Among the biggest culprits in the drop in revenue is Stratosphere, arguably the most popular of American Casino’s properties in Las Vegas. But the hotel has been anything but popular recently, taking a revenue drop of 5.1 percent that was largely attributed to lower average daily room rates and compounded by the hotel’s three-week closure when its Top of the World restaurant was under renovations.
In addition to Stratosphere, American Casino’s other hotel and casino establishments also saw drops in revenue, including a pair of Arizona Charlie’s casinos, which saw its net revenue drop by 5.1 percent, the exact same number Stratosphere had to show for at the end of the final quarter of the year.
But for all the doom and gloom, there was one speck of light: the Aquarius hotel and casino in Laughlin, which saw its fourth-quarter revenues increase 2.9 percent to $21.2 million, a number that was pushed up via the 3.6 percent increase in casino revenue and the 2.2 percent increase in the hotel’s average daily room rate.
