Lawrence Ho minces few words in an interview with Bloomberg News about the autumn opening of Studio City, the $3.2 billion rescue project 
of Melco Crown Entertainment. It’s difficult to decide what’s strangest about the project. Is it having Batman, Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny fronting a casino project? (OK, they’re part of “an indoor play center” but we weren’t born yesterday and know they’re not the primary attraction.) Is it spending $70 million on what must be the world’s most expensive commercial, with Martin Scorcese helming Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and Robert DeNiro in what might be called Ocean’s 3?
Ho also seems to be in dreamland when he talks about wanting the government to give him 400 table games. He might as well wish for a unicorn. The Macao government, having just doled out only 150 tables to Galaxy Phase II can hardly turn around and be Lady Bountiful to Ho. “We hope the government will reward us more, for the hard work we have put in over the last 10 years,” is his argument. But the government has made a point of treating all operators fairly, not of showing favoritism for being Horatio Alger reincarnate.
* Full House Resorts‘ Rising Star Casino has been losing business to Cincinnati and is toying with the idea of a ferry service to capture new revenue. Surprisingly, the destination of the ferry wouldn’t be Kentucky, which lacks casinos, but … Cincinnati. Yeah, it’s a bit of a head-scratcher. The Cincinnati Business Courier notes ominously, “A similar ferry boat plan from Louisville to Indiana floated by Caesar’s [sic] Entertainment in the mid-1990s was killed by high cost estimates and a lack of federal regulatory approvals.”
