Ira Lubert runs his casino like his investment funds
A slow start for Valley Forge Casino Resort
Ira Lubert runs his casino like his investment funds
Joseph N. DiStefano
To run his new Valley Forge Casino Resort, the club-sized hotel-appendaged gambling hall he opened this past Spring in King of Prussia, Ira Lubert says he uses the same formula he's applied over the past 15 years in picking pros to run $10 billion plus at his Independence Capital funds: He hires experienced operators.
(Lubert's day job is running the Independence Capital group of investment funds -- Lubert Adler (commercial real estate), LLR (mid-market buyout), Versa (troubled-company), Patriot (community banks), Quaker BioVentures -- which handle over $10 billion for clients including Pennsylvania state pension funds.)
Three months in, how's this working? "It has been a slow start, Lubert told me, sighing: "It's amazing to me — I thought the ribbon would get cut and 100,000 people would walk through the door."
So far, he's signed up 43,000 card-carrying customers from one or more visits. The slots bet is about $10 million a week, compared with more than $50 million at Harrah's bigger hall in Chester. Then again, Rivers, the Pittsburgh casino where he is a minority owner, got off to a slow start; it now leads its nearest neighbor. Read more in my column in the print editions of Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer, here
I live nearby and will NEVER go until you don't have to pay to get in. Ira clearly has never worked in operations... or logically considered how much of an impact the stupid member fee would be.— main liner- I don't think ownership invented the membership fee. It's an obvious barrier. Rather, I believe it's a gaming regulation for this classification of casino.— Period
