Hard Rock International declares global ambition in its corporate name and 200-plus outposts in 77 countries creating worldwide brand recognition. However, Hard Rock’s gaming portfolio includes just two casinos outside the US Hard Rock Chairman Jim Allen and Asia CEO Ed Tracy tell iGaming Business that will change, though not in a Jumpin’ Jack Flash.
While building its first gaming property outside North America, the Native American-owned company rocks steady with its second guitar hotel taking shape on the Vegas Strip, the second closest casino to Los Angeles opening next month, a potential US$8 billion integrated resort in New York City and international parlays on four continents.
“Internationally, the brand is stronger now than it’s ever been,” Allen says. “We’re under construction in Athens. That is full speed ahead.” The €1.5 billion (US$1.76 billion) Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Athens is scheduled to open in January 2028 as part of The Ellinikon multibillion-euro redevelopment of the Greek capital’s former airport.
Athens fits Hard Rock’s longstanding gateway strategy. “There’s a pattern of big international gateway cities that we are focused on, because I believe that is the future.” Allen says.
Taxman
Elsewhere in Europe, Hard Rock has a gaming licence for Barcelona. Development has stagnated due to state politics in Catalonia. Late last year, lawmakers rescinded a concessionary 10% gaming tax rate granted to the project’s more ambitious predecessor. Now, Hard Rock Barcelona would face a progressive gaming tax from 20% to 55% for GGR above €4.5 billion. Allen says Hard Rock may proceed in Barcelona “depending on what their final decision is on what the tax rate is”.
Hard Rock owns a London casino licence, acquired from the Ritz Club after its 2020 closure. “We’re looking at multiple locations to do something,” Allen says. Hard Rock has a hotel in London, where the first Hard Rock Cafe opened in 1971.
Across the Atlantic, Hard Rock has been in long-running talks to take over the casino at Mexico City’s Hippodrome convention complex, one of the largest MICE venues in Latin America. Allen notes that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum supported the project when she led Mexico City’s government.
To the south, “We’ve been looking at Brazil for 10 years or so,” Allen says, centering on Sao Paolo. “If Brazil finalizes the legalization of land based gaming, we would be very interested. We’re already moving forward with sports betting there.”
“We have long believed that a very high percentage of the gross gaming revenue generating globally was going to end up being on individual devices,” Tracy says. “That doesn’t preclude us, obviously, from investing in brick-and-mortar in the markets where we feel it’s validated.”
Discovering Japan
Tracy joined Hard Rock in 2017, focused on Japan, which remains its main interest in Asia. “We’ve looked at the Philippines, we’ve looked at Vietnam, we’ve looked at Cambodia,” he says. “It’s still down to fundamentals, customer access and the regulatory environment.”
The former Sands China president and CEO adds, “We have taken a hard look in Thailand. We like that market. We’ve been in business in Thailand with our cafe division and our hotels for many years, very successfully. To date, we have not seen a piece of legislation and attenuating regulatory structure that meets our requirements or requirements of our financial partners, the international banks.”
“We’re certainly a lot more in the analytical mindset of evaluation as we go into some of the more challenging places, whether it be the Middle East or Far East,” Allen says. “We’re certainly doing more due diligence on those type situations to make sure that we don’t have capital at risk in a place that could be geopolitically too volatile.”
With a little help from my friends
It’s also a matter of protecting Hard Rock’s investment grade bond ratings from S&P and Fitch. “Our balance sheet is so strong it’s obviously recognized by Wall Street,” Allen says. “Therefore we borrow money more competitively than anyone else in the industry. That allows us capital to reinvest back into the brand and the business, and that formula is something that I’m very, very focused on.”
In Japan, “We’re still extremely active and interested,” Tracy says. “It has just taken a very long time for us to get where we are.” Japan has two available gaming licences after greenlighting MGM Resorts International and Japanese financial services conglomerate Orix to build an IR in Osaka.
Tracy believes Japan will announce restarting the application process before the end of this year with proposal submissions next year. He sees IRs as a catalyst to boost Japan in the lucrative global MICE market “because it is a one stop shop for convention business”.
He notes Hard Rock Cafes have been in Japan for more than 40 years. “We really believe in that market, that it will be one of the top two or three [gaming] markets in the world. And if it takes patience and time to become an active partner in Japan, then we’ve demonstrated we’re willing to do that. A lot of the publicly traded companies decided to fold their tent and leave.”
Take it to the limit
Hard Rock is wholly owned by Seminole Gaming, an arm of the Seminole Tribe of Florida. Seminole Gaming pioneered Native American gaming in 1979 when it opened the first high-stakes bingo hall on tribal land in Hollywood, Florida, between Miami and Fort Lauderdale, then expanded to bingo-based Class II gaming machines and poker.
In 2001, Seminole hired Allen to run its gaming operations. After serving as Trump Organization vice president of operations, Allen got his introduction to tribal gaming as senior vice president of property operations with Sol Kerzner’s Sun International as it opened Mohegan Sun in partnership with Connecticut’s Mohegan Tribe.
Allen led Seminole Gaming’s 2007 acquisition of Hard Rock International. In 2010, Florida approved a compact with the Seminole Tribe to allow Class III machines and banked card games but not dice games or roulette. The tribe agreed to share gaming revenue with Florida on a graduated scale of 12% to 25% from its seven gaming properties.
Tumbling dice
A revised compact approved in 2021 tweaked revenue-sharing parameters while leaving rates unchanged, added roulette and dice games including craps and sic bo to the gaming menu and granted sports betting exclusivity with a 13.75% revenue share rate.
After beating legal challenges, Hard Rock launched live and online sports betting in Florida in 2023. Hard Rock Bet currently operates in nine states with online casino play on its New Jersey platform.
Hard Rock Bet may benefit from the brand’s numerous sports associations. “We haven’t invented the playbook [on sports and casinos], but we certainly have taken it to a whole ’nother level,” Allen says.
Games without frontiers
Hard Rock acquired the naming rights to Miami’s former Joe Robbie Stadium in 2016. Its Hard Rock Stadium hosts the Miami Dolphins and University of Miami American football teams, Miami Open tennis tournament, is part of the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix circuit and will host matches in the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Hard Rock has a partnership with football legend Lionel Messi, and an association with baseball’s New York Yankees through Hard Rock Cafe at Yankee Stadium and a NYY Steak at its Coconut Creek casino hotel in Fort Lauderdale.
Sports linkage would take a quantum leap with Metropolitan Park at CitiField, a US$8 billion integrated resort in partnership with Steven Cohen, hedge fund billionaire owner of baseball’s New York Mets. “We may be the only entity in the history of mankind that’s been partners with the Yankees and the Mets simultaneously,” Allen says.
The project, which includes a Hard Rock hotel and casino, performance venue, dining and parkland plus affordable housing units, passed its first hurdle in September. It’s one of three remaining contenders for three casino licences in the New York City area.
Viva Las Vegas
Meanwhile, Hard Rock Las Vegas takes shape on the Strip, featuring a 700-foot (213-metre) tall guitar-shaped hotel rising on the site of the former Mirage volcano. “It will certainly be a massive statement on the Las Vegas Strip,” Allen says of the $4 billion-plus development.
“Look, if you want to be in the elite three or four properties where the largest EBITDA can be created, product matters, certainly brand management, experience and all those things. But we did not think we could move forward in Las Vegas without a brand-new top-of-the-market type product, at the same level of Wynn, Venetian, Bellagio.”
Less than 90 miles (145 kilometres) north of Los Angeles City Hall, Hard Rock Tejon opens 13 November in partnership with the Tejon Indian Tribe, including a 150,000-square-foot (13,935-square-metre) gaming floor and Hard Rock Cafe. “We’ve very excited about having another flag in California, which is certainly a great market in itself, but it’s also a great feeder market to Las Vegas,” Allen says.
Hollywood swinging
For a preview of Hard Rock Las Vegas, see Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood. The original Guitar Hotel, 450 feet tall with 34 stories, opened in 2019, centerpiece of a $1.5 billion upgrade to the casino hotel site up the road from the original bingo hall.
Based on Gibson’s legendary Les Paul guitar, the hotel pulsates nightly in neon, one of three towers totaling 1,271 keys, running at 95% occupancy, according to property president Bo Guidry. There’s a(nother) wow-factor video-enhanced fountain, retail including a Rock Shop, Rock Spa and Salon with wet and dry treatment and relaxation areas, and a vast playlist of music memorabilia.
Nouveau Japanese Kuro, Latin-Caribbean wood fire grill concept Abiaki and modern Italian Cipresso headline 16 F&B outlets including Hard Rock Cafe, Korean, panAsian, 24-hour deli-flavored diner and two poolside choices in the 18-acre (72,800-square-metre) water complex with “Bora-Bora” cabanas.
DAER features a day club pool experience, indoor-outdoor night club and rooftop lounge showcasing local bands. The resort’s 120,000-square-foot Event Center hosts 500 programs annually from slot tournaments to gala dinners to corporate meetings.
Rock and roll heaven
Premier stage Hard Rock Live seats 6,500 with state-of-the-art sound, broadcast and audience facilities. It has hosted the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen (“I was just with Bruce in Milan,” Allen mentions), and Janet Jackson.
When one of Hard Rock Live’s 140 shows a year lets out on a weekend night, the casino floor feels like New Year’s Eve with a Vegas vibe. Arrayed over 150,000 square feet, 2,600 machines provide more than 60% of GGR, Guidry says. There’s sports betting throughout the floor from kiosks and agents, plus at the sports bar with 360 degrees of action on big screens.
There are 200 tables of poker, blackjack and baccarat variants plus a 55 table poker room. Card game bets generally start at $25, though Hard Rock advertises $5 blackjack 7am-4pm daily. Dice wagers start from $10, roulette from $5.
Hotel guests account for roughly half of GGR. Guidry says 35 Guitar Hotel upper-floor suites are always available for players with credit of $200,000 on weekdays, $500,000 on weekends. A top-floor private gaming area has craps, roulette and six convertible tables for baccarat or blackjack.
“Hard Rock provides an opportunity at any level of tourism expenditure capability to be attracted to it,” Tracy says. “Although we have a five-star component in our business, we’re big believers in the mass market. Our database is probably bigger than anybody else in the business, by virtue of the fact that we operate in 70 countries, over 200 units, hotels, cafes and performance venues. So we have an opportunity and a very unique way to market to an awful lot of people.”
For Hard Rock’s international ambitions, Allen says, Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood “becomes one of the tools to show the creativity that we have, obviously, the level of service, quality of food, you know, all those things that matter”.
In other words, Hard Rock believes nobody does it better.
Muhammad Cohen is a former US diplomat and current iGB Asia editor at large. He has covered the casino business in Asia since 2006, most recently for Forbes, and wrote Hong Kong On Air, a novel set during the 1997 handover about TV news, love, betrayal, high finance and cheap lingerie.
First casino in Europe, first tribal IR on Vegas Strip, Brazil sports betting herald Hard Rock global expansion