Tropicana Entertainment loses $13.6 million in fourth quarter

Tropicana Entertainment

The Tropicana Laughlin.

Vegas Inc. coverage

Tropicana Entertainment Inc. of Las Vegas posted a smaller loss in the fourth quarter than the same period a year earlier, the company disclosed in its annual report this week.

The hotel-casino company controlled by investor Carl Icahn said it lost $13.6 million on net revenue of $146.5 million.

That compares to a loss in the year-ago quarter of $20.4 million on net revenue of nearly $155 million.

The loss fell in part because the 2010 quarter included $19.2 million in accounting entries to write down the value of assets vs. just $5.8 million of such charges in the 2011 quarter.

Tropicana said that for all of 2011, net revenue increased for its casinos in Atlantic City and the Midwest, but it was flat for its properties in the South and fell for its properties in Nevada.

Tropicana has two resorts in Laughlin and one in Lake Tahoe. The Tropicana Las Vegas is owned by another company.

Tropicana Entertainment said the Nevada properties generated net revenue in 2011 of $123.6 million, down 5.7 percent from 2010.

That followed a 10.5 percent revenue decline in 2010 from 2009 for Tropicana in Nevada.

The Laughlin properties have been hurt by “current economic conditions and reduced consumer discretionary spending,” the company said in its annual report.

Last month, Tropicana said it was considering “strategic alternatives” for its 1,001-room River Palms hotel-casino in Laughlin, suggesting it could be sold.

Nothing new on that issue was disclosed in this week’s annual report, though Tropicana did say that in 2011 it wrote down the value of the River Palms by $5.1 million because of the business slump there.

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