Given the steep plunge in casino revenues over the past eight months, Macao casino operators are talking about taking cost-saving measures. Although its mass-market focus 
shelters it from the worst of the downturn, Sands China is mulling cuts in its entertainment and marketing budgets. “We’re not looking to take it apart, the whole structure, but reexamine where those opportunities to run it cleaner and better,” said Las Vegas Sands President Rob Goldstein, adding that the company’s shopping mall is actually performing better than ever.
Over at Wynn Macau, even more stringent measures are allegedly being promoted. The company is supposedly urging its employees to take unpaid leave. When this reached the ears of Secretary for Economy and Finance Lionel Leong, he responded that the casino should be offering additional, paid training instead.
* Sands China, meanwhile, got spanked in Clark County District Court, which ordered it to cease withholding certain documents in the Steven Jacobs wrongful-termination case. To make sure the message across, Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez levied a $250,000 (payable to local legal charities) and pay Jacobs’ court costs. Sands plans to appeal. Sands China’s “ongoing noncompliance is incompatible with and undermines the search for truth,” wrote Gonzalez, who added, “One of the principal sanctions this court imposed for the misrepresentations and lack of candor continues to be ignored by SCL.” As for nine hearings that were held over the Macao Personal Data Protection Act,” Gonzalez dubbed them “needless.”
* Parimutuel horse racing put a hoof forward in Georgia last week. The Legislature’s Senate Regulated Industries Committee voted overwhelmingly to send onward Senate Resolution 135. The bill would put the onus of legalizing horse racing on the voters, not the Lege, so it gives politicians some cover for accusation of ‘expanding gambling.’ Reckoning that the preponderance of wagers will come from out of state, as is the case in Florida, lawmakers hope to raise $25 million for education.
Even though it did well in committee, the bill is no sure thing in the full Senate. “I don’t know that it has the support of the Senate. There’s just a tremendous social cost that comes with it,” said state Sen. William Ligon (R), sounding a familiar note. The Georgia Baptist Convention added its two cents, “It plays upon the weakest in society, the people who can least afford it. We think it’s a bad thing when people promise a vice like this in the name of children,” complained a lobbyist.
Replied Georgia Horse Racing Coalition President Dean Reeves, “People that are against the horse racing say that they will lead to casinos, and that’s just not true.”
