Full House Resorts held its second-quarter earnings call from its new Chamonix Casino Hotel in Cripple Creek, Colorado. That property also dominated the conversation with Wall Street analysts.
During the second quarter, Chamonix opened its 980 Prime steakhouse, the pool, and most of the spa. “They’re very busy,” CEO Dan Lee said of Chamonix’s four massage therapists, adding that he needed to double that number and still staff up elsewhere as well, joking about poaching casino hosts from Monarch Black Hawk, which he regards as his true rival in the area.
“We’ll be essentially done here in the next quarter,” CFO Lewis Fanger said of Chamonix’s progress, adding that it had sold 2,100 room nights in January and was up to 6,500 room nights in June. “We made up a significant majority of the state’s revenue growth during the quarter,” he reported of casino winnings.
According to Full House executives, 21 percent of their new-player signups at Chamonix came from the Denver area, which the company had downplayed as a potential market in the past. “That area is really gravy for us,” said Fanger, who called it “a pretty promising sign.”
Fanger described the casino’s revenue mix as five to six percent table games. “That should be 20 percent or higher,” he said, but blamed it on the “uninspiring” image of Cripple Creek itself, “one-star in quality … As revenues continue to climb, we should see outsized impact” from Chamonix. “Everything that we see is everything we wanted to see in this building. This casino is going to do everything we expected.”
Lee added that Chamonix was running at 65 percent hotel occupancy, “typical of a new casino.” He noted that Full House was comping three-night stays to “people who have a proclivity to gamble,” in hopes of building its player database in Colorado.
“Cripple Creek had become known as a grind-joint, slot kind of place,” Lee elaborated. He described Chamonix as “a sliver of Las Vegas plunked down in Colorado. The Mirage had the same issue in 1989. [Las Vegas] was all about cheap buffets and sleazy entertainment.”
But he indicated that Chamonix was turning a corner. “Last Saturday, the place was jammed and you couldn’t get a seat at the tables.” Even Chamonix’s hideaway Lonely Moose Bar was fully occupied.
“People on Wall Street sometimes think that you open the doors and it’s immediately profitable,” Lee continued. “It’s the normal maturation of a successful casino —and we’ve opened a number of them.”
In Biloxi, Silver Slipper “had a rough first quarter,” largely due to weather, “but a much better second quarter,” Lee said, “It used to be our dominant earnings contributor and will continue to be significant, but now it’s one leg in a three-legged stool.”
Of Full House’s Rising Star casino in Indiana, Lee said, “We think it could be an interesting asset in other ways,” but didn’t elaborate. He indicated that he was pleased with the company’s portfolio overall.
Commentary on The Temporary at American Place, in Waukegan, Illinois, was comparatively peripheral next to Chamonix. Lee said it “made significant money in the second quarter. It’s one of the most profitable casinos in Illinois” and the company should break ground on the permanent casino in a year.
Fanger’s current priority is to move The Temporary from $9 million in revenue a month to $10.5 million, as well as producing $40 million in annual cash flow. “We’re getting much better players through the door” in Waukegan, he added, hence the volatility of the casino’s table play.
“We’re in good shape. The earnings are good,” Lee continued, and Full House is looking for an opportunity in 2025 or early 2026 to issue new bonds in order to finance the $325 million permanent American Place. Lee said that Full House had already spent at least $75 million toward its full $500 million commitment to Illinois through license fees and slot-machine purchases.
Financing American Place by dint of selling it to a real estate investment trust was one route Lee contemplated, but he said, “That’s very expensive capital you have to repay.” In an apparent allusion to Bally’s Corp., he added, “We’re trying to be very methodical about not biting off more than we can chew.”
“We don’t need 325 of additional financing,” Lee elaborated. “We’ll be one of the less-levered casino companies,” which will in turn lower the cost of bonds. “We have quite a good reputation in the bond community. At $5 a share, there’s zero chance we will be issuing any equity. We don’t need to.”
Fanger interjected that the funding is on the table. “We have people showing up in droves to help us with the financing.”
Full House’s documented interest in a Concord, New Hampshire, casino went unmentioned during the call. Lee remarked only, “We’re always looking for ways to improve our portfolio, but have nothing to report at this moment. If all we do is focus on three key properties, that shouldn’t hurt our valuation. We just have to do it right.”
