Quite frankly, I was not surprised to learn that off Strip casinos in Las Vegas had performed better than the Prima Donnas in Las Vegas Boulevard. When I visited Caesars, Flamingo and Aladdin in the Strip last week during G2E, all of them between 11am and 2pm, I carried out the usual footfall count and action reading of the casinos that I have been doing for the best part of the last thirty years, and nothing showed out of the ordinary.

When I was told that a good friend of mine was a marketing executive at The Orleans, which is about half a mile off the Strip on Tropicana West, I decided to pay him a surprise visit, and visit this property themed on that Franco-American southern belle. Quite apart from the queues that had formed at the casino cashiers in response to a promo, the hotel lobby was buzzing with people seeking to register, and both slots and tables had better action than the Strip properties I had visited during previous days.

Dave Revering won the World Series with the New York Yankees some years back, and still is mobbed by fans everywhere. His Baseball exploits, however, are in the past, because for over ten years now he is a well-liked Las Vegas personality. This gentle giant is very fond of Latin America, and is in charge of Player Development at The Orleans, and that is why this property with 3,000 slot machines is reportedly the second best performer in Las Vegas.

The Orleans, a property favoured by the locals, was built by the vision of Michael Gaughan, Chairman and CEO of Coast Casinos in the mid nineties, and has in Marcus Suan, Vice President of Slots Marketing, a dynamic executive. During the time I was meeting with Suan he was trying to make a deal to use his property for the interior shooting of a Hollywood movie, to give his operation greater exposure. It would not come as a surprise, then, if this time next year The Orleans features in a Hollywood blockbuster, and the place is full to the rafters with players brought on by the movie publicity.

In the centre of the casino The Orleans boasts one of the grandest bars of all, The Alligator, with gigantic sculptures of these frightening creatures poised at each corner but we went to Brendan’s, the Irish pub in the property, to quench a desert thirst with a remarkable pear cider that contained 6% alcohol. Two pints were enough to get us going and, as we made a tour of the resort, we came across a cine complex and a bowling alley with 18 lanes. My only disappointment came when I found out that Neil Sedaka’s concert had been postponed, and I couldn’t listen to his rendition of ‘Oh Carol’, but dining at their Mexican Don Miguel restaurant a couple of tequilas were enough to make me feel better.

So it is not surprising to see that off Strip casinos performed at least 30% better than their more glamorous counterparts. The Nevada Gaming Commission published August figures for the state of $905.1 million against $813.7 million for the same month last year, with a year on growth of 11.2%, while the Strip operations grew at just 7.3%. The state collected $59.5 million for the month, up 8.6% on last year.

The analysts’ consensus is that the figures are up to expectations, and that September should prove better. Revering and Suan at The Orleans are in agreement, as the property looks set to outperform the Strip casinos again. Not passing up a good thing when they see one, Boyd Gaming acquired the property along with the three other Coast Casino properties a few months back and have already seen their share value increase by 2.8%, a trend maybe set to continue.

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