James Packer is back. Undoubtedly encouraged by the recent groundswell of development on the Las Vegas Strip, he’s bought the New Frontier site for a casino development that will be underwritten by the Oaktree Capital Management hedge fund. Construction is to begin late next year, with the goal of finishing by 2018. The project will be overseen former Steve Wynn sidekick Andrew Pascal, whose former boss happens to work across the street. In the abstract it looks solid. It’s that Packer brings so much troubled karma with him: He invested heavily in the U.S. casino industry at its financial peak and got wiped out, to the tune of $1.85 billion. (He only just settled a lawsuit with Fontainebleau lenders two months ago.) Every deal he made went sideways. His success in the Pacific Rim hasn’t translated to American markets.
At least he’s gotten a great bargain on Strip real estate, snaring the 35-acre New Frontier site for $8 million an acre. Taken by itself, the Vegas deal “seems to make sense” according to ATI Asset Management‘s top researcher, David Liu.
The question is, where does it fall in a very crowded queue of Packer projects? His Crown Resorts is committed to new hotels in Perth, Macao and Barangaroo (pictured) plus resorts in Sri Lanka and in Brisbane. Then there’s the $5 billion that Packer has promised to spend if he gets a casino deal in Japan. Is the media heir getting overextended again? As one Crown investor cautioned, “It’s nice to have the options, but you still need to exercise care.” Even so, it makes a lot more sense than buying The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, a bad investment idea with which Packer had a fiddle before regaining his senses.
* Today’s the final day for bids on Revel, which Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian has six potential suitors. (Interestingly, Guardian says 
there’s also interest in buying Showboat from Caesars Entertainment but none that he’s aware of in Trump Plaza — the living ghost of Donald Trump continues to hex that casino.)
State Senate President Steven Sweeney (left), meanwhile, continues to work on his two-tiered reconfiguration of gambling in New Jersey. In it, developers would be empowered to build casinos outside of Atlantic City … provided they pay a much higher casino tax rate (Atlantic City’s is one of the lowest in the country) to subsidize the seaside resort. I wonder if that will fly: John Q. Entrepreneur may understandably balk at being obligated to pay the freight for struggling casinos on the Boardwalk.
