Poker Players, or What is that stuff under that rock?

[AKQJ10]

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Wal-mart does, and it's not close.

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Are you sure? Certainly WMT covers a lot more area, so it's no surprise that its aggregate revenue is so immense. But per unit of land, I wouldn't be surprised if more upscale shops make more revenue.

FWIW WMT is generally dealing with lower land costs than a boutique, so they need less revenue per unit of land to pay for that expense. Granted, that says nothing about revenue, but it is worth noting that you've gotta make a lot of revenue to run a shop on Park Avenue or Rodeo Drive.

[cardcounter0]

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Who makes more money? Wal-Mart or the Foo-Foo-La-La Boutique? Certainly the Boutique has a higher profit margin, but they dont make more money.


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Let's see. The boutique is run my Ms. Foo-Foo and Ms. La-La. It is a small leased shop in a fashionable part of town. Excess inventory is stored in Ms. Foo-Foo's garage, and Ms. La-La personally does all the buying. They have about a 10,000% profit margin on the foo-fah they sell, and they sell enough of it they both live very comforatbly.

Wal-Mart requires huge tracts of land all across the country with huge buildings. These buildings are occupied with literally 100,000 workers. Huge amounts of infrastructure are requried to even produce a paycheck for each one of these employees. Not to mention needing multiple layers of management to watch them. A huge logistical network is required to keep all these stores supplied, and a huge communications network is built to do buying, ordering, and inventory tracking. The managers of Wal-Mart live very comfortably, although they don't have as much time off as Ms. Foo-Foo and Ms. La-La.

Now a casino has a limited amount of space they can allocate to the poker room, and a limited amount of employees and a limited amount of training they can give.

Do they open a Poker Wal-Mart, or try to run a Poker Botique?

Obviously the Botique provides more revenue per the limited resource of casino floor square footage. Do you see why?

[youtalkfunny]

The casino does not give a damn who tips better.

[AKQJ10]

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The casino does not give a damn who tips better.

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Depending on the labor market, they might care if it helps them recruit and retain better employees.

[timprov]

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Wal-mart does, and it's not close.

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Are you sure?


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I wish I had real numbers, but I can't see how it would be any other way. Volume is huge.

I do know that as far as malls go, the mall that makes the most money per square foot in the US isn't a trendy upscale one but the Empire Mall in Sioux Falls, SD, which is at least a hundred miles from anyone who can spell "boutique."

[MarkGritter]

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Wal-mart does, and it's not close.

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Are you sure?


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I wish I had real numbers, but I can't see how it would be any other way. Volume is huge.


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In their January annual report:

459,158,000 square feet (not counting Sam's club)
$191.8 billion dollars of sales

$417.72/square foot of revenue

This isn't way out of range. I wasn't able to find recent competing figures, but a 1995 survey put the median grocery store revenue at about $400/sq ft.

But it is a lot. One major data center provider reported revenues of $164 million on 1.4 million square feet of space or about $117/sq ft.

A small botique (1000-2000 sq ft) earning Wal-mart rates would have revenues of $400-800K/year.

When you compare sales/sq ft, don't mix the apples with the oranges. WM's product mix changes the perspective when you compare them with a Goodyear tire store, for instance. Compare the Goodyear store with a Firestone store if you're looking for who's doing a better job in the $/sf category.

WM's figures are in the mega-big range, sure. 24/7/363 in their Super Centers helps. The sq ft number you found may or may not be for floor space. Also, you don't know if they include the leased spaces or those sales numbers.

Probably more minutiae than anybody gives a rat's ass about, but I was just pointing out that the numbers are always rough. Only the guys reading the P/L know - and usually they're not advertising those numbers.

[whiskeytown]

kiss my ass [censored]? - That's my response. - LOL

I have to say though, for being a dive, the Imperial Palace does take good care of it's poker players.

RB