Wow, inflation really is spiraling. When last we checked (i.e., yesterday), a New York City casino license was going for $500 million. However, if some state senators get their way, that not-inconsiderable price tag will rocket to $1 billion. According to a senatorial state budget, snuck out on Sunday, New York State “shall determine a licensing fee to be paid by a licensee within thirty days after the award of the license which shall be deposited into the commercial gaming revenue fund; provided however that such licensing fee shall be no less than one billion dollars per license.” The Assembly has put no dollar amount on the license.
You have to wonder: If that’s the price of admission, is it worth it? Should MGM Empire City and Resorts World New York just stick with VLTs? Not to worry, senators have an incentive for them to pony up, essentially guaranteeing them licensure: Lawmakers would have to “consider private capital investment made previous to the effective date.” In other words, capex investments would be discounted from the license price. Expect Las Vegas Sands and others to cry foul.
Motivated by the lucre achieved from online sports betting, the state Senate would increase the number of OSB providers to 16 (hope for Barstool Sports yet!), while the Assembly would bump it to 14, with 30% of the seven new licenses earmarked for minority owners. Whether the Empire State market is big enough to profitably support 14-16 operators (especially at a 51% tax rate) is another question … one for the free market to sort out.
It’s admittedly difficult to justify devoting cyber-ink to a gambling opponent such as Tony Hsieh, even if it could be argued he did Las Vegas a public service by ridding it of two of its scummier casinos, the Gold Spike and the Western. However, a creepy cult of personality was growing up around Hsieh even while he was alive and it’s only gotten worse since his untimely demise. Two Wall Street Journal reporters have written a biography of Hsieh, Happy at Any Cost, and it drops today. Although Hsieh was pretty out there, mentally, biographers Katherine Sayre and Kirsten Grind reportedly put most of the blame for his troubles on his circle of enablers. Among the disclosures, according to Vital Vegas, “At one point, Hsieh encouraged friends to join him in a suicide pact.” Shudder!
The WSJ has already printed a lengthy extract from the bio, so you can decide for yourself whether you want to curl up with Hsieh’s psychoses (such as starting his own nation). One of the few sane Hsieh insiders was singer Jewel Kilcher, who saw Hsieh in late-period Howard Hughes mode and uncannily predicted the manner of his demise. “If he kills himself and everyone else in there from a huge fire, you can’t say you were not warned,” Kilcher remarked upon being banished from Hsieh’s Park City candle-ridden compound. Hopefully, the new book’s focus on Hsieh will stimulate awareness of mental-health issues, as opposed to stirring misguided nostalgia.
A betting imbroglio in the NFL is unwittingly showing the value of legal sports books. Sharps who betted on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to run the table next season, dramatically moving the line, have tipped off Westgate Las Vegas‘ Superbook to a possible (hell, probable) leak of Tom Brady‘s flip-flop unretirement. “There’s not a doubt in my mind that they knew he was coming back when they placed those wagers on Thursday,” Westgate betting supremo Jay Kornegay told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “And these were not casual bettors. They would be categorized as educated bettors. It wasn’t a guy with a Tom Brady jersey at the counter.” (Sharps also placed heavy bets at South Point.)
Although the league is burying its head in the sand, Kornegay is unsatisfied: “There is no doubt in my mind that information leaked sometime in the middle of last week. This is concerning. I don’t think I’ve ever said the NFL really needs to investigate something. But this is something they need to look into and how it got out, because there are many books that took some sizable wagers in the middle of last week.” Mind you, Kornegay’s not being entirely altruistic. As he readily admits, Westgate now has a six-figure liability on its hands if those futures bets come home to roost. That’d wreck 2Q23, no doubt about it.
An editorial in the Press of Atlantic City says a smoking ban in casinos “looks inevitable.” We certainly hope so, especially as 11 more New Jersey assemblymen have just piled onto the bandwagon. In the meantime here is how things look at the Boardwalk’s most upscale casinos. From late last month comes this snap of business at Hard Rock Atlantic City …
Looks pretty busy, doesn’t it? More recently, “Hard Rock got the jump on MGM Borgata with its new (for A.C.) technology that lets you select your gift from a slot machine rather than have to wait in line at a kiosk to do a similar function,” reports on East Coast correspondent:
Ocean Casino Resort, not to be outdone, “surprised and shocked” with April offers for $125 in free play, plus a free shirt or two bottles of wine. That’s mighty “george.”
Borgata’s counter-offer? Free pillows. (A gift not to be gainsaid.) If you’re into casino carpets, here’s Borgata’s signature pattern:
“Gaming Industry for Ukraine” has raised a mere $250,533 for the besieged country. C’mon, Big Gaming, you can do better than that! Afraid of offending Putie? Cheap, more likely. Helping Ukrainians doesn’t count as “maximizing shareholder value,” after all. Ten grand here, $7,500 there does not impress us. Also, the heavy hitters in the industry are conspicuous by their absence from the cause.
Jottings: Good news for Tilman Fertitta. Regulators in Illinois have green-lit a Golden Nugget casino for Danville. When finished, it will have 14 table games and 500 slot machines. The Danville casino is expected to encroach upon Indiana business … No satellite casinos for existing operators in West Virginia. A bill that would have allowed them to establish intra-county spinoffs died of disinterest in the Lege. It was hoped its passage would enable the repurposing of empty department stores … Where is the air more polluted than downtown Peking? Try any casino on the Las Vegas Strip. The cleanest air is to be found at Aria, not at smoke-free Park MGM (#2 in ranking) or Wynncore (#3). The survey was conducted by HVAC company Wynd and met with skepticism from Americans for Nonsmokers Rights … Cult figure Elon Musk‘s Vegas Loop will now be connected with Westgate Las Vegas, per a vote by the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority. The LVCVA also opted to spend $435 million on capex reinvestment in the convention center itself … FanDuel has gone live in Wyoming. It’s third to market behind DraftKings and BetMGM.
The NFL has locked lips with gambling, the very last thing it will do is investigate it’s biggest star who threw his cell phone into a river instead of handing it over to investigators. Someone close to Brady obviously cashed in, and now that sports betting is national this is going to play out often. I an a huge tennis fan, every telecast now has betting commercials, if your friend the pro tennis player calls you because his girlfriend was cheating on him with his brother you now have inside information about a match you can easily plunk down cash on. Pro tennis players and pro golfers have entourages, entourages have entourages, these are sports that require 110% focus, nobody can focus at their best levels when life throws you curveballs. I hope Tampa Bay gets crushed, future book NFL wagers are silly, but inside information being acted on is toxic…