Boyd lays off 25% of staff

These are the ones who killed the cash cow, in the form of the Stardust, to build yet another mega-fiasco and almost killed the company doing so!

I've always enjoyed playing at their places, but I don't have much faith in their top management, back then or today.

 

I still play and stay at the Downtown Boyd properties. They treat me right.

 

I can see how the Vegas locals would take such change but I still love to gamble in Gold Coast, in fact I stayed there 2 summers ago for multiple nights and it was wonderful. But again I am a once maybe twice a year out or towner who only benefits slightly with the comps and perks that I do get not just from Boyd but from CET and MGM.

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We had a reservation with Vacations Hawaii in March, that was transferred to June. It was canceled and refunded in full Then we booked for July . That was canceled and refunded in full. Then we rebooked for August. All at the Main Street. Now August has been transferred to Sept and at the Cal because Main Street will still be closed. Sigh....... we are anticipating canceling September and not looking at a trip until 2021 or later.

 

I was loyal to Boyd and would give them practically all of my play while staying there. But their marketing changes and player program changes didn't sit well with me.

I still would stay at their properties but I now play elsewhere significantly.

I was curious to see how Boyd would fare after their changes but with this virus pandemic it's hard to get an accurate assessment.

 

It's either let many of them go or cut everyone's hours--many to part time.

For the short term, they're probably better off collecting unemployment.

And hopefully by the end of the yr we have a vaccine. Then hopefuly these folks can get their jobs back--keep your fingers crossed!

 

These layoffs have nothing to do with the changes so many of you were upset with or any other specific market strategy they have. The hotel and restaurant business is being absolutely slaughtered by COVID, and any business in that sector that hasn’t done their layoffs yet just hasn’t finished the paperwork and/or is waiting to run out of their PPP money. I’d honestly be surprised if only 25% of hotel/restaurant employees nationwide end up jobless, Boyd might actually be saving more employees than a lot of other folks.

 

FWIW, it’s not any different regarding Boyd properties away from Las Vegas. I live fifteen miles from their Ameristar-St. Charles, MO property. They were open all of June and had their best month in a year, despite many machines being turned off to allow for social distancing. My guess is making table minimums on most carnival games $15, and BJ and craps minimums $25 did the trick for them. Missouri Gaming in their monthly reports tracks all sorts of statistics, and the average loss per patron was up at least 50%, if not more, for most casinos in Missouri, so I would hazard a guess that most of this increased action came from table players. Unfortunately it will probably encourage table minimums in other jurisdictions to remain abnormally high.

 

We have taken exactly the same path as others here in terms of severing our relationship with Boyd's since the changes. The only thing we do is visit some of the restaurants once-in-a-while. I think you will see many of the casinos using this opportunity to move toward weakening the union which may not be a terrible thing depending on your viewpoint. They have also figured out ways to conduct business without as many staff members and there is no doubt they will continue those tactics. The whole episode will speed up innovations like robot-bartenders, reduced HK services and cashless casinos. All of those changes mean less people working. Just part of ongoing change that started with getting rid of the change ladies.

 

The big take upon reopenening probably contained a good chunk of those $1200 per person stimulus checks. It will be interesting to see how July turns out for them if they keep the high minimums.

 

Agree, I was there the other day, very busy and they had turned on most of the machines and had little to no distancing. Masks optional, but the county said it might change that as the county covid cases are spiking.
Still the top casino in the St Louis area.
I find them better than Penn/MyChoice, but I'm not a VP player.