MGM National Harbor - Maryland

For all it's glitz and glamour the largest casino in the area has already dropped to #2 in producing revenue for the state. National Harbor just opened in December 2016 and figured to hurt all the other casinos in the area. The first 2 months they were the top revenue producer but now have dropped down to second to Maryland Live. I'm sure MGM wasn't expecting this to happen anytime soon let alone 3 months in to its existence.

The place is lavish and all but I feel they have too many slot machines jammed into the place. If you have two rows of slot machines facing away from each other and a player in each chair you can hardly walk down between the two of them. Things are just too tight on the slot floor.

 

This thread will likely get merged with the existing MGMNH one, but I agree with the sentiment of this post. Overall, I expected that MGMNH was going to be a much nicer facility than Maryland Live, and unfortunately I don't think it is. My summary of your thought is that MGM tried to cram 10 pounds of **** into a five pound bag. Casino floor much too crowded with stuff.

 

I'm just not a fan of the rectangular shaped casino floor that they had to box themselves into. Seems so restricting. Much prefer a circular setup like the Borgata where you can walk in circles exploring the casino floor. On second thought MD Live is essentially a rectangle as well but it's much longer end to end and seems wider as well so you feel like you have room to breathe. I know MD Live's casino floor is in fact larger than MGMNH (something like 140,000 sq ft to MGMNH's 125,000 sq ft). Originally, I didn't think that difference would be noticeable but it certainly is.

 

I haven't been to AC in a while, but one of the things I always liked about Borgata was the domination of table games on the casino floor. It was sort of similar to how Bellagio was when it first opened (i.e. there were slots, but you didn't really notice them). I often wonder how much influence Steve Wynn had in the design of Borgata, as it was a joint Mirage/Boyd property and the plans were likely underway before Steve sold to MGM in early 2000.

Reason I mention is because last year I walked through the Venetian casino and it seems like they had abandoned the "warehouse" look (which still seemed to prevail at Palazzo), but the prevalence of the new-ish machines (including the ones that act as table games) that seem as big as all get out really made for a garish look there, IMO. And I was just in Vegas last week and walked through Bellagio and noticed those mega-monster machines were making their presence on the floor there as well. Its really too bad.

 

Glad to see that revenue is dropping. I hope it prompts NH to reduce their table mins across the board. $15 craps or blackjack wouldn't kill them. I'd certainly go more often if they did that.