Blue Stone Insights

Casino Re-Opening Toolkit – Rebooting Tribal Economies
April 24, 2020

When casinos reopen it will, for most of us, be a very challenging time.  In our series on Reigniting Tribal Economies we want to take a hard look at what it will take to get reopened and provide some valuable tools that leadership can begin using now as they plan for casino re-openings.

Weaker economies, lack of consumer confidence, unemployment and fear of the COVID -19 virus will combine to make a significant impact.

Some Vegas casinos are predicting that revenues will be as low as 30% in the short term. Most Tribal casinos do not depend upon national and international tourism in the same way Vegas does so we all hope not to see business levels that low upon reopening.

BUT what if business is that bad? Where is the tipping point for your casino revenues and expenses and what’s the impact on cash flow to the Tribe? Knowing and planning for your profit and loss tipping point allows leadership to properly plan and implement cost cutting scenarios.

CLICK here (link to excel sheet) for our simple worksheet that illustrates the impact on profits at various levels of revenue and costs. Simply plug in your annual revenue and costs (we suggest using the 2019 year end results and exclude depreciation for now). The worksheet will perform the calculations to show the range of results that various combinations of revenue and costs will produce.

Casinos and related businesses face two major challenges right now

  • Restructuring the business model to minimize the damage caused by declining revenues to cash flow
  • Getting ready to reopen in a safe environment with appropriate social distancing

In order to support your efforts in preparing to reopen in a safe environment, we have included a draft copy of a Casino COVID-19 related protocols checklist (link to both versions here). We have a link to both the PDF and MPP version of this allowing your casino leadership team to upload this populated template into the Microsoft Project platform. (please contact us if you are interested in receiving the .mpp file)

Included in this Casino Reopening Tool Kit:

Casino Profit Calculator

Casino COVID-19 Protocols