Significant Accounting Policies (Policies)

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2020

Basis of Presentation: The unaudited Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements of the Company have been prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States (“GAAP”) for interim financial information and with the rules and regulations of the SEC.

Principles of Consolidation

Principles of Consolidation: The unaudited Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements include the accounts of Penn National Gaming, Inc. and its subsidiaries.

Use of Estimates

Use of Estimates: The preparation of unaudited Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements in conformity with GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect (i) the reported amounts of assets and liabilities, (ii) the disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the financial statements, and (iii) the reported amounts of revenues and expenses during the reporting period. Actual results may differ from those estimates.

Segment Information

Segment Information: We view each of our gaming and racing properties as an operating segment with the exception of our two properties in Jackpot, Nevada, which we view as one operating segment. We consider our combined VGT operations, by state, to be separate operating segments. See Note 17, “Segment Information,” for further information. For financial reporting purposes, we aggregate our operating segments into the following four reportable segments:



	Location	Real Estate Assets Lease or Ownership Structure
Northeast segment
Ameristar East Chicago	East Chicago, Indiana	Pinnacle Master Lease
Greektown Casino-Hotel	Detroit, Michigan	Greektown Lease
Hollywood Casino Bangor	Bangor, Maine	Penn Master Lease
Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races	Charles Town, West Virginia	Penn Master Lease
Hollywood Casino Columbus	Columbus, Ohio	Penn Master Lease
Hollywood Casino Lawrenceburg	Lawrenceburg, Indiana	Penn Master Lease
Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course	Grantville, Pennsylvania	Penn Master Lease
Hollywood Casino Toledo	Toledo, Ohio	Penn Master Lease
Hollywood Gaming at Dayton Raceway	Dayton, Ohio	Penn Master Lease
Hollywood Gaming at Mahoning Valley Race Course	Youngstown, Ohio	Penn Master Lease
Marquee by Penn⁽¹⁾	Pennsylvania	N/A
Meadows Racetrack and Casino	Washington, Pennsylvania	Meadows Lease
Plainridge Park Casino	Plainville, Massachusetts	Pinnacle Master Lease

South segment⁽²⁾
1^st Jackpot Casino	Tunica, Mississippi	Penn Master Lease
Ameristar Vicksburg	Vicksburg, Mississippi	Pinnacle Master Lease
Boomtown Biloxi	Biloxi, Mississippi	Penn Master Lease
Boomtown Bossier City	Bossier City, Louisiana	Pinnacle Master Lease
Boomtown New Orleans	New Orleans, Louisiana	Pinnacle Master Lease
Hollywood Casino Gulf Coast	Bay St. Louis, Mississippi	Penn Master Lease
Hollywood Casino Tunica	Tunica, Mississippi	Penn Master Lease
L’Auberge Baton Rouge	Baton Rouge, Louisiana	Pinnacle Master Lease
L’Auberge Lake Charles	Lake Charles, Louisiana	Pinnacle Master Lease
Margaritaville Resort Casino	Bossier City, Louisiana	Margaritaville Lease

West segment
Ameristar Black Hawk	Black Hawk, Colorado	Pinnacle Master Lease
Cactus Petes and Horseshu	Jackpot, Nevada	Pinnacle Master Lease
M Resort	Henderson, Nevada	Penn Master Lease
Tropicana Las Vegas	Las Vegas, Nevada	Owned⁽³⁾
Zia Park Casino	Hobbs, New Mexico	Penn Master Lease

Midwest segment
Ameristar Council Bluffs	Council Bluffs, Iowa	Pinnacle Master Lease
Argosy Casino Alton ⁽⁴⁾	Alton, Illinois	Penn Master Lease
Argosy Casino Riverside	Riverside, Missouri	Penn Master Lease
Hollywood Casino Aurora	Aurora, Illinois	Penn Master Lease
Hollywood Casino Joliet	Joliet, Illinois	Penn Master Lease
Hollywood Casino at Kansas Speedway ⁽⁵⁾	Kansas City, Kansas	Owned - JV
Hollywood Casino St. Louis	Maryland Heights, Missouri	Penn Master Lease
Prairie State Gaming⁽¹⁾	Illinois	N/A
River City Casino	St. Louis, Missouri	Pinnacle Master Lease


(1)	VGT route operations


(2)	Resorts Casino Tunica ceased operations on June 30, 2019, but remains subject to the Penn Master Lease.


(3)	As noted in Note 18, “Subsequent Events,” in April 2020, we entered into a sale-leaseback transaction with GLPI for the real estate assets used in the operations of Tropicana.


(4)	The riverboat is owned by us and not subject to the Penn Master Lease.

(5)

Pursuant to a joint venture (“JV”) with International Speedway Corporation (“International Speedway”) and includes the Company’s 50% investment in Kansas Entertainment, LLC (“Kansas Entertainment”), which owns Hollywood Casino at Kansas Speedway.

Revenue Recognition

Customer-related Liabilities

The Company has three general types of liabilities related to contracts with customers: (i) the obligation associated with its mychoice program (loyalty points and tier status benefits), (ii) advance payments on goods and services yet to be provided and for unpaid wagers, and (iii) deferred revenue associated with third-party sports betting operators for online sports betting and related iGaming market access.

Our mychoice program allows members to utilize their reward membership cards to earn loyalty points that are redeemable for slot play and complimentaries, such as food and beverage at our restaurants, lodging at our hotels and products offered at our retail stores across the vast majority of our properties. In addition, members of the mychoice program earn credit toward tier status, which entitles them to receive certain other benefits, such as gifts. The obligation associated with our mychoice program, which is included in “Accrued expenses and other current liabilities” within our unaudited Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets, was $37.8 million and $36.2 million as of March 31, 2020 and December 31, 2019, respectively, and consisted principally of the obligation associated with the loyalty points. Our loyalty point obligations are generally settled within six months of issuance. Changes between the opening and closing balances primarily relate to the timing of our customers’ election to redeem loyalty points as well as the timing of when our customers receive their earned tier status benefits.

The Company’s advance payments on goods and services yet to be provided and for unpaid wagers primarily consist of the following: (i) deposits on rooms and convention space, (ii) money deposited on behalf of a customer in advance of their property visit (referred to as “safekeeping” or “front money”), (iii) outstanding tickets generated by slot machine play or pari-mutuel wagering, (iv) outstanding chip liabilities, (v) unclaimed jackpots, and (vi) gift cards redeemable at our properties. Unpaid wagers primarily relate to the Company’s obligation to settle outstanding slot tickets, pari-mutuel racing tickets and gaming chips with customers and generally represent obligations stemming from prior wagering events, of which revenue was previously recognized. The Company’s advance payments on goods and services yet to be provided and for unpaid wagers were $31.5 million and $42.2 million as of March 31, 2020 and December 31, 2019, respectively, of which $0.6 million were classified as long-term in both periods. The current portion and long-term portion of our advance payments on goods and services yet to be provided and for unpaid wagers are included in “Accrued expenses and other current liabilities” and “Other long-term liabilities” within our unaudited Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets, respectively.

Revenue Recognition: Our revenue from contracts with customers consists primarily of gaming wagers, food and beverage transactions, retail transactions, hotel room sales, racing wagers, and sports betting wagers. See Note 4, “Revenue Disaggregation,” for information on our revenue by type and geographic location.

Complimentaries associated with Gaming Contracts

Food and beverage, hotel, and other services furnished to patrons for free as an inducement to gamble or through the redemption of our customers’ loyalty points are recorded as food, beverage, hotel and other revenues, at their estimated standalone selling prices with an offset recorded as a reduction to gaming revenues. The cost of providing complimentary goods and services to patrons as an inducement to gamble as well as for the fulfillment of our loyalty point obligation is included in food, beverage, hotel and other expenses.

Gaming and Racing Taxes

Gaming and Racing Taxes: We are subject to gaming and pari-mutuel taxes based on gross gaming revenue and pari-mutuel revenue in the jurisdictions in which we operate. The Company primarily recognizes gaming and pari-mutuel tax expense based on the statutorily required percentage of revenue that is required to be paid to state and local jurisdictions in the states where or in which wagering occurs. For the three months ended March 31, 2020 and 2019, these expenses, which were recorded primarily in gaming expense within the unaudited Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations, were $336.3 million and $386.5 million, respectively

New Accounting Pronouncements

Accounting Pronouncements Implemented in 2020

In June 2016, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”) issued ASU No. 2016-13, “Financial Instruments - Credit Losses (Topic 326): Measurements of Credit Losses on Financial Instruments” (“ASU 2016-13”), which sets forth a “current expected credit loss” (referred to as “CECL”) model which requires the Company to measure all expected credit losses for financial instruments held at the reporting date based on historical experience, current conditions, and reasonable supportable forecasts. This replaces the existing incurred loss model and is applicable to the measurement of credit losses on financial assets measured at amortized cost and applies to some off-balance sheet credit exposures. We adopted ASU 2016-13 during the first quarter of 2020 using a modified retrospective approach, which resulted in a cumulative-effect adjustment to retained earnings as of January 1, 2020 of $0.6 million.

In August 2018, the FASB issued ASU No. 2018-15, “Customer’s Accounting for Implementation Cost Incurred in a Cloud Computing Arrangement That Is a Service Contract” (“ASU 2018-15”). Under the new guidance, customers will apply the same criteria for capitalizing implementation costs as they would for an arrangement that has a software license. This will result in certain implementation costs being capitalized; the associated amortization charge will, however, be recorded as an operating expense. Under the previous guidance, costs incurred when implementing a cloud computing arrangement deemed to be a service contract were recorded as an operating expense when incurred. We adopted ASU 2018-15 during the first quarter of 2020 using a prospective approach, which did not have a material impact on our unaudited Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements.

Accounting Pronouncements to be Implemented in 2021 and Beyond

In December 2019, the FASB issued ASU No. 2019-12, “Simplifying the Accounting for Income Taxes” (“ASU 2019-12”), which intends to simplify the guidance by removing certain exceptions to the general principles and clarifying or amending existing guidance. ASU 2019-12 is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2020, including interim periods within those fiscal years. The Company is currently evaluating the impact of the adoption of ASU 2019-12 on its consolidated financial statements.

In January 2020, the FASB issued ASU No. 2020-01, “Investments - Equity Securities (Topic 321), Investments - Equity Method and Joint Ventures (Topic 323), and Derivatives and Hedging (Topic 815) - Clarifying the Interactions between Topic 321, Topic 323, and Topic 815” (“ASU 2020-01”), which made targeted improvements to accounting for financial instruments, including providing an entity the ability to measure certain equity securities without a readily determinable fair value at cost, less any impairment, plus or minus changes resulting from observable price changes in orderly transactions for the identical or a similar investment of the same issuer. Among other topics, ASU 2020-01 clarifies that an entity should consider observable transactions that requires it to either apply or discontinue the equity method of accounting. For public business entities, ASU 2020-01 is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2020, and interim periods within those fiscal years. Early adoption is permitted. The Company is currently evaluating the impact of the adoption of ASU 2020-01 on its consolidated financial statements.

In March 2020, the FASB issued ASU 2020-04, “Reference Rate Reform (Topic 848): Facilitation of the Effects of Reference Rate Reform on Financial Reporting” (“ASU 2020-04”). ASU 2020-04 provides optional expedient and exceptions for applying generally accepted accounting principles to contracts, hedging relationships, and other transactions affected by reference rate reform if certain criteria are met. In response to the concerns about structural risks of interbank offered rates and, particularly, the risk of cessation of the London Interbank Offered Rate (referred to as “LIBOR”), regulators in several jurisdictions around the world have undertaken reference rate reform initiatives to identify alternative reference rates that are more observable or transaction-based and less susceptible to manipulation. ASU 2020-04 also provides companies with optional guidance to ease the potential accounting burden associated with transitioning away from reference rates that are expected to be discontinued. ASU 2020-04 can be adopted no later than December 1, 2022 with early adoption permitted. The Company is currently evaluating the impact of the adoption of ASU 2020-04 on its consolidated financial statements.