In his first earnings call as Full House Resorts president, Lewis Fanger breezed through a third-quarter overview in a brisk 12 minutes. “We had a very strong quarter,” he began. “Our temporary casino continues to fire on all cylinders,” Fanger said of the interim American Place in Waukegan, Illinois. “The pace of new database signups hasn’t slowed down in recent memory.”
He added, “People still don’t know that there is a casino in Waukegan and the number of people discovering that on a daily basis is very high.” Fanger noted that Illinois operations were paying off the interest on Full House’s debt.
Fanger projected an eventual $50 million annual cash flow from the temporary casino and double that from the permanent American Place. He also revealed that the construction budget for the latter has been slimmed down from $325 million to $302 million. The permanent American Place is slated to have 90 percent more slot-machine capacity and 90 more table games than its predecessor.
CEO Dan Lee clarified that there was no deadline to open the permanent casino by August 2027; but that deadline was to close The Temporary at American Place, although he thought a legislative reprieve was likely. He said he wouldn’t pay “usurious rates” just to obtain development capital. “We’ll be open when we’re open.”
Lee added that he’d recently visited the new Hollywood Joliet and recent Wind Creek Southland, both prospective competitors. He complimented both casinosm, but said American Place would be nicer still.
President and CFO Fanger also scolded “uninformed opinions” about a potential tribal casino in Kenosha, Wisconsin. “That project,” backed by the Seminole Tribe, “is far from certain, with several hurdles.”
The proposed casino, Fanger continued, “has gotten significantly smaller over the years. It’s likely many years down the line.” That part of Wisconsin, he added, is relatively thinly populated and closer to Milwaukee than to Waukegan. He noted that the tribe in question was located near Green Bay, far from Kenosha, and was not well capitalized.
Lee said that the project would need Bureau of Indian Affairs approval and the BIA is now “much less friendly to tribal gaming than it was under [Joe] Biden. Much more difficult to do it under the Trump administration.”
Lee added that it’s also unclear that Wisconsin’s governor would sign off on the proposal. As for the Potawatomi Band in Milwaukee, “They’re gonna fight that tooth and nail.”
On the subject of financing American Place, Lee was again pressed by analysts to go to a REIT for capital. Competition among REITs, Lee said, was making that route more appealing than before.
He then segued into the November 6 announcement that Golden Entertainment would sell its real estate to Vici Properties. “I’m a little jealous,” he joked. “It’s pretty brilliant. I don’t know if we’ll get there. We have no active looks at going private.
“We’re pretty sure somebody shorted the bonds,” Lee said with asperity. “One analyst is bad-mouthing us every chance he gets. It’s kind of ridiculous.”
Turning to Full House’s flagship Chamonix resort in Colorado, Fanger reported, “Our table games business is starting to thrive,” with revenue up 53 percent, while slots were 161 percent more robust.
“We have the prettiest table pit in the state,” said Lee, so much so that nearby Century Casinos closed its table game operation entirely. He said he’d been to the Brass Ass Casino and found “a few very lonely players” at its tables, while the Double Eagle (“sorely in need of refurbishment”) was “a pretty dead-looking place.”
Asserted Lee, “We’ll continue to gain share and continue to grow that market.” He noted that Chamonix had Cripple Creek’s first baccarat table and introduced electronic craps to town. That being said, “Our table games business is a fraction of what they do at Ameristar or Monarch [in Black Hawk]. We have room to grow.”
Lee was “comfortably confident Chamonix will be profitable in 2026. You don’t build these things for three years. It’ll be a strong asset for the next 25 years.”
“Our high-frequency guests are coming more often,” the CFO said, 33 percent more frequently. Group business was also said to be picking up, including a “verbal agreement” for a 2026 event that would entail 1,200 room nights.
Fanger characterized the unspecified event as “important political and business leaders from throughout the region.” The eventual goal at Chamonix, he said, is to host 55 events per year.
“Honestly, we should have been doing this three years ago,” Lee said of building group trade. He added that Pueblo, Colorado, represented 15 percent of Chamonix business and Full House would be doing more outreach there, including manning a booth at the state fair. “You have to find these little nuggets,” he added. “It just takes time.”
“A pleasant surprise to us was the number of guests coming from the Denver market,” Fanger resumed. “We viewed Denver largely as gravy,” but it is quite wealthy and densely populated. Another 15 percent of guests were coming from out of state, primarily Texas.
Fanger also disclosed that the Chamonix workforce had been reduced from 373 full-time employees to 325. Lee explained that Full House is not replacing people who left and is “trying to right-size the payroll for the revenue we have, not the revenue we think we should have.
“We will not get to where we expect to be just by cutting costs,” the CEO continued. He added that Chamonix could cost-cut its way to profitability, but only at the expense of long-term returns.
On the Indiana front, Lee said, “The original locations aren’t the best in terms of maximizing revenue,” now that all the surrounding states have casinos. A Legislature-approved study about relocating Rising Star has been completed, but Lee said that any move would need legislative and gubernatorial approval.
“Half the population is in Indianapolis,” he said of that potential site, with Caesars Indianapolis 30 miles away, Harrah’s Hoosier Park 35 miles distant and Terre Haute Casino 50 miles. “The state still comes out way ahead.”
Ditto the Fort Wayne area, home to 600,000 people and not presently served by a casino. At its current location, Rising Star is the only casino in Indiana’s bottom tax tier, Lee pointed out.
Operations on Lake Tahoe, where Full House operates the Grand Lodge Casino, have been somewhat impaired by CBS-TV owner Larry Ellison’s ongoing redo of the nearby Hyatt. “There’s going to be a spectacular building mirroring the spectacular location,” when Ellison is done, Lee said.
Until then, high-end suites at the Hyatt are unavailable, dampening Grand Lodge revenues, as is the restaurant, Hyatt’s biggest. The Tahoe beach is also currently out of reach to Full House customers, the CEO explained.
Lee then concluded the call by saying, “It’s astounding to me that our stock is as low as it is, but this too will pass.”