Three hundred people turned out yesterday at UNLV to hear Sheldon Adelson hold a rap session with the kids about the evils of online gambling. Adelson’s animus, it turns out, was his father’s propensity to gamble his money away at Boston-area racetracks. So why isn’t Adelson trying to get horseracing banned? (Or slot routes or tribal casinos … ?) I know, I know: Stop trying to make sense of it. Where you see a cell phone or a computer, Sheldon sees a little casino. “I am in favor of it as a form of entertainment. But I am not in favor of it exploiting the world’s most vulnerable people,” he said, adding with deliberate irony, “I know I am a Republican and I am not supposed to be socially sensitive, but I am very socially sensitive.” It’s not clear whether anybody asked Adelson to elaborate on his belief in the mystical powers of brick-and-mortar casinos to deter disordered gamblers.
“The integrated resort is my contribution to the industry,” Adelson said, referring to Venetian Macao. Again, he didn’t explain why casino megaresorts like MGM Grand, which preceded his arrival on the scene didn’t qualify. (Oh, and Sheldon: You look so cute when you make those air-quote gestures.)
COO Michael Leven was also on hand to address the student body. He told reporters Sands already has ‘boots on the ground,’ as it were, in Japan. Sands has opened an office there, staffed it up and is already advertising. Casinos in Japan aren’t a done deal but Adelson is the pace car with whom everyone else must keep moving.
Speaking of habits, now that Nevada has a legal framework for growing and distributing medicinal marijuana, everybody’s getting jiggy with it, including staid figures like Las Vegas Sun Editor Brian Greenspun and M Resort President Anthony Marnell III (which puts Penn National Gaming one degree of connection away from the medicinal-pot biz). The Nevada Gaming Control Board was quick to warn casinos away from such investments, citing the legal peril of overriding, federal anti-marijuana laws. “Unless the federal law is changed, the board does not believe investment or any other involvement in a medical marijuana facility or establishment by a person who has received a gaming approval or has applied for a gaming approval is consistent with the effective regulation of gaming,” NGCB member Terry Johnson. Never mind that gamblers can freely feed their nicotine habit or get blind drunk on a gaming floor, the Control Board has decided to draw the line somewhere and this is it.
