PENN Entertainment Inc (PENN) 2015 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Penn National Gaming 2015 first-quarter results conference call. (Operator Instructions). I would like now like to turn the conference over to Joe Jaffoni with Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Amanda. Good morning everyone and thank you for joining Penn National Gaming's 2015 first-quarter conference call. We'll get to management's presentation and comments momentarily as well as your questions and answers, but first I'll review the Safe Harbor disclosure. In addition to historical facts or statements of current conditions, today's conference call contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 which involve risks and uncertainties. These statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as expects, believes, estimates, projects, intends, plans, seeks, may, will, should, or anticipates, or the negative or other variations of these or similar words or by discussion of future events, strategies, or risks and uncertainties, including future plans, strategies, performance, developments, acquisitions, capital expenditures and operating results. Such forward-looking statements reflect the Company's current expectations and beliefs but are not guarantees of future performance. As such, actual results may vary materially from expectations. The risks and uncertainties associated with the forward-looking statements are described in today's news announcement and in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Company's reports on Form 10-K and 10-Q. Penn National Gaming assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements.

Today's call and webcast will include non-GAAP financial measures within the meaning of SEC Regulation G. And when required, a reconciliation of all non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable financial measures calculated and presented in accordance with GAAP can be found in today's press release as well as on the Company's website.

I'll now turn the call over to the Company's CEO, Tim Wilmott. Tim?

Thank you, Joe, and good morning and welcome, everyone, to our first-quarter 2015 earnings call for Penn National. I have the entire team with me here in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania. After my introductory comments, you will hear from Jay Snowden, our Chief Operating Officer, talk a little bit about our first-quarter results, what we're seeing in our operations, what we're seeing in terms of consumer trends. And then I'll turn it over to Saul Reibstein who will -- our CFO, who will talk about our second-quarter and full-year guidance and also give you some financial metrics as we closed out the quarter.

As you've seen from our release this morning, generally our results were in line, in most cases a very modest beat on almost all metrics with the exception of revenues and pretty much what we expected although it certainly was stronger in the first half of the quarter than it was in the second half of the quarter. And Jay will get into that a little bit.

The only other notable item that we had occur in the first quarter is the announcement that we are, pending the approval of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, expecting to open up the Plainridge Park Casino on June 24. And everything there looks very good in terms of our readiness. We are actually installing slot machines as we speak and we're going to have a terrific facility there in a great location in that part of southern Massachusetts opening up in about two months.

So, that's really all I have from a commentary standpoint. I'd like to turn it over to Jay to give you more color of what we saw in operations in the first quarter.

Thanks Tim. Excuse me. It really was a relatively uneventful quarter, not too many surprises. We experienced strong property level margin performance that was partially offset by higher corporate and Massachusetts preopening expense that will also affect us in the second quarter. And Saul will walk you through that in his guidance comments.

Really, as Tim mentioned, it was a tale of two halves in the first quarter. We had a solid first half of the quarter driven largely by milder weather and lower gas prices year-over-year. Weather comps proved to be more difficult the second half of the quarter as we experienced frigid temperatures across the Midwest and record snowfall in the Northeast impacting several of our properties.

Weather aside, we really continuing to see momentum at our four Ohio businesses, the two new tracks in Dayton and Mahoney Valley as well as our existing casinos in Columbus and Toledo. We continue to hit or exceed our internal projections for those four properties. And we are continuing to average over 5,000 new card sign-ups per month per property in Ohio, which I think demonstrates our ability to cultivate new business and continue to build our database.

Speaking more broadly about the database trends in the first quarter, they largely mirrored what we experienced in the fourth quarter on a year-over-year basis. Spend per visit continues to be a good story for us and showing growth. Visitation improvements across all tiers and work segments. I think both of those factors are largely being driven by a firming labor market and consumer confidence continuing to move in the right direction.

And as Tim mentioned, though we experienced a sequential deceleration throughout the first quarter from January to March, happy to report that April results, with weather behind us now, have been very encouraging really throughout the Company and all of our three regions.

More broadly, as we look into the second quarter, we are laser focused, as Tim mentioned, on our Plainridge Park Casino opening on June 24. The promotional environment throughout our portfolio properties in different jurisdictions remains stable and weather factors are largely behind us, so believe that Quarter 2 will largely be a I think more accurate barometer as to the true health of the consumer.

So, in summary, we are encouraged by the property level results in Q1. Q2 is off to a good start but we are still hesitant to call for the full consumer recovery. That day has remained relatively elusive for us. But we'll see how we feel when we get back together with you in July looking back at the second quarter.

So, with that, I'll hand it off to Saul to walk you through second-quarter guidance and full-year.

Thanks Jay. Second-quarter and full-year 2015 guidance considers the macroeconomic factors affecting the US market today, including lukewarm growth in consumer spending at the retail level, a slowdown of US hiring in March, and continued uncertainty about the future oil prices. All signs indicate that the general economy has slowed in the first quarter and little momentum heading into the second quarter. These factors and ongoing volatility compound the estimation of 2015 guidance.

After our usual property-by-property review, we have left guidance for the full year unchanged other than to account for the favorable results of the first quarter. For the quarter ending June 30, 2015, we have established guidance for net revenue at $672.7 million, adjusted EBITDAR at $185.8 million, and adjusted EBITDA of $77 million. Similar to Q1, we anticipate that forecasted revenue and margin increases in Q2 will again be offset by preopening expenses and cash settled stock awards.

Page 6 of our press release provides current estimates for corporate overhead, rent, interest, non-cash stock compensation, and depreciation and amortization. In addition, some of our other key data points are cash on hand at March 31, 2015 of $238 million. All of our debt covenant ratios have been comfortably met. Project CapEx, inclusive of our Jamul Indian Village project, for 2015 is estimated at $372 million with $99.2 million in Q2. Maintenance CapEx for 2015 is estimated still at $75 million with $22.5 million in the second quarter. Preopening costs for the second quarter include higher-than-expected regulatory costs and more extensive marketing costs in Massachusetts. Our GAAP basis effective tax rate for the balance of 2015 is currently estimated at 44%. And finally, free cash flow before project CapEx and principal repayments of $139 million for the year.

And with that overview, we can open for questions.

(Operator Instructions). Felicia Hendrix, Barclays.

Tim or Jay, regarding the color that you provided in your prepared remarks on the consumer and what you're seeing in April, I was just wondering if you could give us a little more granularity in terms of what you're seeing at the lower end of the spectrum versus the higher end of the customers' spectrum. That is is the improvement that you are seeing broad-based or is it specific to certain demographics? And then also to take that one step further, is it across all the states you are in or are some markets and regions doing better than others?

Good morning Felicia. To answer your questions, it really is broad-based, both with regards to the worst segments in the database. We are seeing growth in visitation and spend per visit across all segments right now, which is very encouraging, particularly at the low end, and it is broad-based across the portfolio, so all three regions we are seeing nice performance in April. And it's been steady. It hasn't been a big weekend here, a big weekend there. It's really been day by day. We're seeing nice growth in the business on a year-over-year basis and versus our expectations.

That's great to hear, finally. It's been a long time. And then while I have you, there's a number of gaming expansion deals in various stages of legislation. We have New Hampshire, Connecticut, Indiana, Illinois. Can you give us a quick refresh on the likelihood of any of those passing and the potential impact to any of your operations?

Felicia, this is Tim. Good morning. I'm going to turn that question over to Eric Schippers, our head of Public Affairs. And Eric, why don't you start with the gaming expansion bill that's being discussed in Indianapolis right now that will likely get on Governor Pence's desk? And we know he's been against gaming expansion and it's something we are watching very closely.

Yes. Thanks Tim. We can start in Indiana. There was a hearing yesterday, Felicia, on what really precedes a conference committee on what we are calling a gaming expansion bill and what I think many people other than the tracks realize is a gaming expansion bill. That would allow for live table games at the racetracks. It would also allow for land-based gaming and make permanent our $5 million in tax-free promotional credits.

So the big debate is really a question of when those live tables would be permitted. The Senate version would permit them in 2021. The House version would have them come in in July. So we are waiting to see if the two sides can reconcile their differences on that. What Pence, the governor, will ultimately do, as Tim said, since it is a gaming expansion bill, since he has historically been opposed to gaming expansion and since that introduction of live tables would hurt our operation in Lawrenceburg, we are hoping he'll be consistent and say no to those provisions. So that's Indiana.

We then look at Illinois, which is a perennial debate over what we call the kitchen sink expansion bill. There will be some noise there. The real key factor there is the new mayor of Chicago, or excuse me, the reelected mayor of Chicago, has made it very clear that it's a priority to have a downtown Chicago casino. So that may change some of the dynamics of the debate.

VGTs in Illinois certainly is a complicating factor as they continue to proliferate. So we're going to continue to watch that. I think, if you were looking at the history of Illinois, they are about 0 for 21 on gaming expansion. So we'll see if that changes this year.

The other ones, New Hampshire and Maine and Georgia now is starting to look at it, they are all debating it in the context of is there too much saturation already? Have we missed the boat given Massachusetts in the case of New Hampshire and Maine has already approved? I think it's unlikely that New Hampshire will move. I think Maine is also unlikely, given the saturation in the governor's position on whether Maine can support another casino. In Georgia, it's really early but I think the odds are against that given the conservative nature of that state but, again, we'll continue to watch that closely.

What about Florida and Tallahassee?

Yes, so Florida, we've been watching that closely as well because one of the items that they've been considering in conjunction with the gaming expansion proposal is the end of dog racing. We have a track there in Sanford, Orlando. The latest is that the complications with trying to finalize the compact with the tribes means that the other tracks that are hoping to get slot machines probably are not going to be successful this year. And that the time is more likely to just run out on a gaming bill in Florida. That's the latest we are hearing.

Okay, that's (multiple speakers). I think you got it. Thanks a lot.

A lot of movement.

Joel Simkins, Credit Suisse.

I just had a quick question here on Plainridge. Can you just contrast a little bit your marketing strategy for this asset going into the opening versus perhaps what you might've done in Ohio. Just want to make sure that the awareness is going to build pretty quickly and you get GGR off the ground in a fast fashion.

Sure Joel. This is Jay. Really that is a large part of the reason why you are seeing our Massachusetts preopening expenses, both in Q1 and our estimate for Q2, higher than what we had anticipated for full-year guidance when we put that out at the beginning of the year is that really we've got two great markets, deep markets, and markets that have experienced gamers in Boston and the greater Providence MSA. And so we had initially gone in thinking we really wanted to focus on Boston. Boston is an expensive market to advertize in. That's fine, but we're also going to be very aggressive in Providence because the amount of time it takes you in your car to get from Providence to Twin River, there's really not as much interstate access as there is directly to our facility. It's pretty equidistant in time in car, so we want to make sure that we are getting awareness out there in both markets. And we're going to be very aggressive throughout the months of May and June preopening and we have an ongoing aggressive strategy as part of our ongoing operation throughout the remainder of 2015. So, we're going to be very aggressive and I think that it obviously is a more expensive market, but we're going to do what it takes to drive awareness and penetrate those markets.

Sure, that's very helpful. Just a quick follow-up here on Vegas. I guess, one, how do you guys continue to think about the strip potentially? And then also how do you think about expanding your asset at the M which could potentially use some more hotel rooms?

Joel, really nothing has changed there. We continue to look at opportunities on the Strip. It is a strategic imperative for our company to find an opportunity to monetize our database, as Jay mentioned, a growing database that we believe needs to find a home on the Strip with the right product at the right location at the right price. And I think in my mind, as I think about that opportunity versus potentially more hotel rooms at the M, I think we have to, in the future, come to some conclusion of what we want to do there from a capital perspective either/or at this time. So I think that's where our heads are right now and we continue to look and we're looking at other things as well. We realize we've got two solid programs in our pipeline in Massachusetts and in California, and we are really focused on where growth is going to come beyond 2016 right now as a team.

Thanks Tim.

Steve Wieczynski, Stifel.

Jay, you gave a lot of good color in terms of what you're seeing out there in the market. But can I ask it a little bit different way? If you looked at your Marquee rewards program, have you seen sign-ups or new sign-ups start to accelerate there at all?

It depends on the market, Steve. In our newer markets, so Kansas Speedway, the four new businesses in Ohio, yes, I referenced that earlier. We're still seeing over 5,000 new card sign-ups per property in Ohio so, over 20,000 new members to our database per month, which I think is a great story. In some of the more competitive markets, not necessarily seeing significant growth, although we are seeing improved trends from what we've seen over the last several years, which is encouraging, just not to the same magnitude that we are seeing in some of the newer markets. So yes, broadly, to your question, but more pronounced in our newer markets.

Okay, got you. And then second question, with Columbus, maybe, Tim, can you give us some color on that market at this point? I know if you look at Scioto, they are doing pretty well. The numbers have been pretty solid. It seems like El Dorado is investing a lot of money or reinvesting back into that property as well. So is there any concern on your part or maybe a little bit of color on that market would be helpful.

I'll turn it over to Jay if I miss anything but, Steve, we just added a noodle bar, a new Asian offering, in Columbus that's done very well in the five or six weeks it's been open. We are seeing nice increases in Asian table drop since we've opened the new offering. We're going to continue to remain competitive there. And we still see the Columbus market as maturing and growing and it's a very important business for us and the fact that there's two operators in Columbus, I think we'll both do very, very well in that market as it continues to mature. It's now getting to the 2.5 year mark in Columbus, so it's still showing signs of good growth in our database. The quality of play continues to improve, and I think we'll both coexist very favorably there in a market that's very healthy.

Okay, great. Thanks guys.

Steven Kent, Goldman Sachs.

A couple of questions. Saul, it sounded to me like you were a little bit more downbeat than the rest of the team giving some commentary on fuel concerns or employment. Is that just you being the CFO and being more conservative, or is there something else more there?

And then just more broadly on the expense side, you've done an amazing job over the past two years. Can you just give us some examples of what you specifically are doing and how much further you can push that over the next 12 to 18 months to keep the margins better than expected?

You know, Steve, a good team has different players around the table. So if my remarks indicated a more tempered view than the others, maybe that's the role the CFO needs to play. Clearly, I focused in the guidance remarks on macro conditions, and I always like us to underpromise and overdeliver if we can. So, you are right. It might be a more conservative outlook than the others. I wouldn't read much more into it.

With respect to your question about our cost management, we met a week ago as a national leadership team for our annual meeting and I spent a day with our property CFOs and we actually conducted a around-the-table discussion property by property and we asked each of our property CFOs to come to the table with an idea or two of how they are continuing to look for cost reductions in the business. And I will tell you it was a lively discussion. It was a very, very -- lots of notetaking around the table as each property CFO described a technique, an area of focus or a particular strategy that that property had implemented that could be applicable to other properties around the network. So, I would tell you that, as well as we've done in the past, we are not at the end of that road at all going forward.

Stephen, the only thing I would add is we are really continuing to see nice margin ramp in our new businesses in Ohio. That helps the overall margin for the Company. And I think that there's obviously still opportunity, even in some of our more mature markets, to improve, as Saul mentioned, in sharing our practices. And we turn over every rock. It's just not the big buckets of labor and marketing but all of the other areas, utilities and cost of goods, etc. So we continue to challenge ourselves and continue to believe that we can hold on if not improve upon our current margins.

Steve, this is Tim. I think Jay hit it well that traditionally, in the past, operators looked at the variable opportunities of marketing and labor. A couple of years ago, we kind of created the mindset that no expense is fixed and that we take a hard look at, as Jay said, utility costs and real estate taxes and things that are traditionally below the operating line but certainly affecting our overall EBITDA margins. And we've made great strides in our businesses attacking these semi-fixed costs and I think the opportunities over the next two years are still there for further improvement.

Maybe just to follow-up, are you incenting property managers, both at the property level and at the corporate level? I think I remember you doing that but I just want to be clear that that's another part of the strategy.

Everyone at the property level and our key operating folks here at Corporate are heavily incented to maximize EBITDA. And obviously growing revenues and maximizing margins deliver those results. So everyone here is driven on trying to generate as much operating cash flow as we possibly can, including myself.

Thanks.

Shaun Kelley, Bank of America.

Good morning everyone. Maybe just to follow-up on the cost discussion, one thing that I think was going on a little bit on that was the possible rollout of I think a larger embrace of email marketing. And I was curious about you know kind of how some of your electronic marketing initiatives stood. I think that was possibly some of the newer Ohio properties. And then the strategy or idea of possibly rolling those out further across the portfolio. Is that something you could give a little bit more color on?

Sure, Shaun. We're still at the very, very early stages. We did open our Mahone Valley racino in the greater Youngstown market with the goal of being 100% digital. Now, we are obviously not at 100% but we have exceeded some of the internal assumptions on what was really something that we could grasp there. We are looking at probably close to two-thirds to 70% of our business we are now marketing through electronic means as opposed to through the mailbox, and we have plans to rollout those efforts across the organization over the course of the next 9 to 12 months. And so we've got a couple of pilots that will be commencing in the summer and we also plan to open our newest facility in Southeast Massachusetts with the same strategy of digital communications to our customers as opposed to snail mail. So we are continuing to see progress.

The early signs in Mahone Valley are positive. And being completely honest, our industry is just so far behind other industries, whether you're talking hotel industry, retail, and the like. So this is not revolutionary stuff. It just happens to be for us and we are very happy with the early results and we're going to get there in short order.

Just to be clear on it then, do you see any differences in either the ramp up or the player behavior as sort of the result of kind of going this route, or are you able to pretty much generate the same type of response from customers at like ideally a lower cost I guess per kind of volume of whatever you are sending out?

It's a good question Shaun. We've been very encouraged by what we've seen in the behavior spend patterns, response rates with those who we're communicating with digitally when compared to those that we are communicating with through traditional means in the mailbox. So, very encouraged in what we are seeing and obviously it's done at a small percentage of the cost.

Perfect. My last question, if I could, would just be could you just give us a little bit of an update on two properties in particular, because they had been some of your largest cannibalization property last year, which would be West Virginia and Lawrenceburg. Are you seeing at least decent signs of stabilization in both of those markets and kind of are they performing as expected or kind of ahead or behind of plan? That would be helpful.

Sure. I'll highlight that. You see the topline revenue trends at both properties. And if you are one of the curious ones, you can see weekly in the case of Charlestown in West Virginia. Many of our analysts and investors like to talk about the weekly results. I would tell you that Charlestown, we've actually been pleasantly surprised by the minimal, I would call it de minimis impact to our business from the opening of Horseshoe Baltimore. There's been a little bit of impact to our table game business, really nothing on the slot side which has been encouraging. We continue to experience single -- low single digit year-over-year decline in our slot business at Charlestown. So a pretty good story there relative to where it's been the last 2.5, 3 years since the opening of Maryland Live and really minimal -- really de minimis impact to our Penn National property out of south-central Pennsylvania, the York County area from Horseshoe Baltimore as well. So pretty happy with how our businesses have held up in the face of new competition in the greater Baltimore area.

Lawrenceburg, we've I think done a really nice job managing the business. There's no doubt we continue to see an impact on the top line. The good news is we anniversary the opening of Belle Terre Park here in May. So we are a month away and probably two or three months from really seeing some stabilization in the top lines -- topline results of that business. And the team there continues to manage margins extremely effectively, so I think if we do see some stabilized revenue -- if we see a stabilized revenue environment, the results out of Lawrenceburg should continue to improve.

Thank you very much,

Joseph Greff, JPMorgan.

Good morning guys. Most of my questions have been asked and answered. Just one thing. I don't know, Jay, if you touched on this and I missed it, but you did reference weather being an impact in the 1Q and I can imagine you guys might be loath to sort of attribute what that impact is because you guys don't like to make excuses. But can you help frame what you think the weather impact was, whether it's days impacted this quarter versus a year ago, or some way to triangulate that impact?

Joe, I'm looking forward to moving forward into Q2 so we can stop talking about weather, as I know you are as well. Here is how I'd summarize. We saw -- this is same-store, so not including the two new tracks. Same-store snow impacted days in January year-over-year were down 20%. We had a great month. In February, they were up 20%. These are rough but up 20%. And in March they were up slightly, mostly pronounced at the beginning of March. And so as you look at it as a hole, I think it was probably mostly a wash.

Now what I would tell you that I think is not really being discussed about Q1 is that typically you have, in one of your 31 day months, January or March, you have an extra weekend, and this year it was in January. January is traditionally one of our slowest months of the year. Granted, we had a very good month on a year-over-year basis but trading a perfect calendar January versus March is going to hurt your first quarter. And last year, we had the perfect calendar in March. This year, we lost a Saturday. So overall feel pretty good about the trends. There's no doubt we decelerated sequentially, as I mentioned earlier, from January to March, but here we are in April. Weather is not an issue and feeling pretty encouraged by what we're seeing.

Got it. And then my final question, Saul, for you is in your corporate expense guidance of just under $82 million, how much in that number relates to cash settled stock-based awards? I know it was $4.5 million, or at least a swing of $4.5 million in the 1Q.

$3 million Joe.

For the quarter?

For the quarter, yes, correct.

Great. Thank you.

Carlo Santarelli, Deutsche Bank.

Jay, you mentioned earlier obviously being encouraged by Charlestown and the impact that Horseshoe Baltimore has had. Just given the geography and the driving distance from that property, do you have a changed view or is your expectation for when National Harbor opens a lot may be less punitive than maybe it was originally given the experience with Baltimore?

That's a tough one, Carlo. I am encouraged by -- to the level that Maryland Live was able to grow the overall market, obviously they had a significant impact on our business. But it's a deep market. You're talking about significant population bases in the greater DC, greater Baltimore, northern Virginia, Western Maryland. These are deep markets and they are still largely underpenetrated. So, will National Harbor have an impact on our business? Of course it will. But as we described it previously, the opening of National Harbor is largely going to coincide with our opening of Jamul. And we think that the benefits we receive from Jamul will largely offset the impact to our Charlestown facility is the way we are thinking about it.

Great, thanks. That's helpful. And then Saul, just one quick housekeeping. Maintenance CapEx in the quarter as well as project, could you clarify whether or not there was any residual Ohio track spend in the period for any kind of licensing fees or anything?

Sure. Maintenance CapEx for the year was $75 million. For the quarter, the first quarter is $12 million. I think we said $22 million. I know I said $22.5 million for Q2. And in terms of Columbus, Toledo in Q1 --

Dayton, Dayton and Youngstown.

I'm sorry, Dayton and Youngstown, in Q1, we had a total spend there of about $6.5 million. What you have to remember about Dayton and Youngstown in 2015 is the second portion of the license payment is due at the anniversary of opening. That's $25 million for each track and that's included in the numbers.

That will be in Q3.

Q3.

Okay, great. So then it sounds like, if I look at Plainridge, Zia Park, and your spend towards Jamul, maybe that number for the quarter is somewhere in the mid-$50s million for total project CapEx?

For Q2?

For Q1, sorry.

Q1 total CapEx, project CapEx spend was $36.9 million. It will be $59.6 million in Q2.

Okay. And that $36.9 million includes or excludes the Jamul contribution?

It excludes Jamul. Jamul is another $14.7 million.

Great. Thank you very much.

(Operator Instructions). Thomas Allen, Morgan Stanley.

Good morning guys. So, in your press release, you highlighted that, in addition to Massachusetts and California, you are pursuing other opportunities to enhance long-term shareholder value. And you touched on the call about you've been putting a lot of thought this year into what you're going to do after 2016. Can you just elaborate on that a little bit?

Thomas, I did cover that a bit previously, talking about Las Vegas. We realize we've got, as I said, two good projects in the pipeline, but we are looking at M&A opportunities that fit within our capital structure, that represent entree points into certain locations where we don't have a presence in today. We are looking at certain things where we can buy EBITDA and improve upon the performance of the business through our operating expertise. We don't see anything out there in that time period right now that represents growth through new jurisdictional development. But again, these things -- these evaluations are nonstop. We continually look at this. We've talked about being on the Strip for as long as I've been here, which is now coming on seven years, and that's not going to change. And we realize we have an opportunity and a responsibility for our shareholders to represent prospects of growth where we think we can enhance shareholder value, and that's not going to change.

And we do have a capital structure that we are mindful of. We have leverage ratios that we certainly keep a close eye on but we balance that against the worth of the opportunity that we go chase and that's a constant effort that BJ Fair, our Chief Development Officer, and the rest of the team here looks at continually as we look at various options to grow the business in whatever form is possible.

As you know we brought on Chris Sheffield in the beginning part of 2015 to take a look at opportunities in the digital space. And we are still early in our thoughts there, but we still see opportunities to expand our presence with customers in different forms of gaming, be it social, be it fantasy, be it commercial. And again, that's a nontraditional look at things, but it's something that continues to emerge on our radar screen that we have to take a hard look at.

Great. That actually was my second question, so I'll think of something else. So just in terms of -- if I was to look at your revenue and I was to strip out the Ohio properties and West Virginia, so Charlestown and also Lawrenceburg, given cannibalization in those markets, it looks like your -- the rest of the properties are about a 1% increase in revenue. And so as I think about kind of same-store trends, Jay gave some positive comments about what's going on with the database and visitation and spend per visit. Do you think that's the right way to think about those rest of the properties, kind of how I think about your same-store trends ex-cannibalization for the rest of the year?

That's a loaded question. A lot of ifs, ands, or buts. I think that's fine. I think that's sufficient. You know, it's -- we are very happy -- I'll give you an example. Our Mississippi business, as you were talking about businesses in markets that have been around for a long time, Tunica, Biloxi, Gulf Coast, and our Mississippi businesses are showing nice trends right now, both topline and certainly on the margin. So, it's really market to market. It really depends. I don't think there is a global response to your question, Thomas, but I think that we are going to continue to have a mixed bag given that we operate in so many different jurisdictions and have a portfolio of over 20 properties once we open Mass. And it really goes quarter to quarter, and sometimes you can't even explain why a business that was showing growth didn't show the decline and vice versa. But broadly, we are encouraged by the businesses, whether you're talking about the new businesses in Ohio or some of our longer standing businesses like Charlestown and our properties in Mississippi.

Okay, I'll fold. Thank you.

I'm showing we have no further questions registered at this time. Please continue with your presentation or closing remarks.

Thank you operator. Again, I want to thank everyone for being on the call today to listen to our perspective on our results in the first quarter of 2015. I think it demonstrates again the operating expertise within Penn National to take the ups and downs of various businesses and deliver very solid margins and solid results on operating profits. And I think that is a continual story of how we think about the business and think about how we are going to continue to manage in environments that always remain uncertain in our business. We don't have a Las Vegas model that has bookings out there that gives you a perspective of what the next three months or next six months look like. We are very much a retail-oriented consumer that's dependent upon visitation patterns that occur day in, day out, week in week out, month in, month out. And we react accordingly. So with that, I look forward to being back with you in -- with the team in the latter part of July as we talk about second-quarter results and give you some early color on what we are seeing with our opening on June 24 in Massachusetts. So thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude the conference call for today. We thank you for your participation and ask that you please disconnect your lines.