Saturday, May 03, 2008

MGM Grand Revenues Up, Employees Laid Off

In some interesting news which appears to highlight the enormous expectations MGM Grand had for its Detroit location, the casino laid off "under 100" employees between January and early April, 2008, even as its revenues continued to increase.

In fact, revenues for March 2008 at MGM Grand were up 5.94% over March 2007, to $50.2 million. This compared to decreases of 3.7% at MotorCity Casino compared to March 2007, with March 2008 revenues of $41.3 million. Revenues at at Greektown Casino were down 3.58% to $33.2 million in March 2008. Greektown appears to be relegated to third place, even with its new parking structure.

The Las Vegas executives at MGM Grand must have had enormously high expectations for non-gaming revenues from the Detroit property, if revenue increases of 5.94% lead to 100 layoffs. At some point, I will crunch the numbers to see if I am correct on my theory: Although MGM Grand Detroit is first in absolute revenues, I believe it may be last in terms of revenues as a percentage of overall capital investment to open a permanent casino.

The layoffs were identified as coming in the casino's "food and beverage" employee base. This just solidifies for me that MGM Grand vastly overestimated its expected occupancy at the hotel portion of the new casino resort.

No comments: