Penn National Gaming, the industry’s largest regional casino operator, said more than 70% of the company’s portfolio had relaunched operations after being shut down since mid-March due to the coronavirus pandemic.
With Friday’s opening of four properties in Ohio and a racetrack casino in its home state of Pennsylvania, Penn is now back to business in 13 states. The company said the 30 of its 41 properties are operating at a limited capacity and under various health, safety, and cleaning protocols, per state and regulatory guidelines.
The company has still not reopened Tropicana Las Vegas on the Strip, even though Nevada relaunched its gaming operations on June 4. Penn sold the 34-acre Strip resort to Gaming and Leisure Properties in late March for $337.5 million in rent credits but will continue to operate the resort under a lease agreement. GLPI has said it wants to sell the hotel-casino.
Penn did reopen two other Nevada casinos, M Resort in Henderson and Cactus Pete’s in the northern Nevada community of Jackpot.
Penn furloughed roughly 26,000 employees at the end of March and has brought back workers at reopened properties. But word surfaced this week that the company has notified employees in several states the furloughs may become permanent layoffs later this summer.
“We informed our team members that their furloughs may be converted to a permanent layoff in the coming weeks or months,” Penn spokesman Eric Schippers told the Reading Eagle. “We had a legal obligation to send a formal WARN notice to all the team members who could potentially be laid off. To be clear, however, that does not necessarily mean that all those team members will be laid off.”
Penn National said it implemented comprehensive social distancing and safety protocols at all of its reopened properties, developed in close consultation with state regulators and local and state public health officials.
Penn CEO Jay Snowden said in a statement reaching the 70% figure was an “important milestone” for the company.
“We are continuing to work closely with our regulators and state and local leaders to prepare for the eventual reopening of all of our remaining properties,” Snowden said. “I want to thank our state regulators, as well as our Corporate and property management teams who have worked tirelessly over the last several months to get us to this point.”
Penn has reopened casinos and racetracks in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and West Virginia.
Shares of Penn closed at $32.14 Friday on the Nasdaq, up 41 cents or 1.29%.
Howard Stutz is the executive editor of CDC Gaming Reports. He can be reached at hstutz@cdcgaming.com. Follow @howardstutz on Twitter.
