Nevada State Treasurer Dan Schwartz, the man who would be governor, is a refreshingly impolitic and heterodoxical candidate. He’s made a frequent campaign point that the Silver State has the worst 
schools in the nation and needs to re-orient its priorities. Now, from his bully pulpit, he has taken aim at Raiders Stadium, a boondoggle built on hotel-tax increases and bonds that won’t be paid off before the Oakland Raiders‘ lease expires. He admits he can’t do anything about the financing package — but he can try and stop new appropriations. In what appears to have been an oversight, no financing provision was made for access to the stadium, and it will stay that way if underdog Schwartz inherits Brian Sandoval‘s veto pen.
In an interview with the Las Vegas Sun, Schwartz said, “The state is in charge of the roads. And I can say, ‘You want to go to the Raiders stadium? Well, you can get there on roller skates because I ain’t building any roads.'” (Schwartz’s faulty grammar testifies to the poor quality of Silver State schooling.) He asked the Sun, “Why are we taking $750 million in public funds when we have the worst schools in the nation and using it to effectively pay for a stadium for a group of guys who are billionaires? I’m not saying there should not be a stadium. I don’t mind building a $1 billion stadium. That’s the point. We don’t need to spend $2 billion dollars on the Taj Mahal of stadiums.” And at least the Taj Mahal is attractive to behold.
* Speaking of new venues in Las Vegas, while he missed out on Raiders Stadium, Sheldon Adelson hasn’t given up on the dream of a giant entertainment palace on vacant land behind Venelazzo. He’s partnering with Madison Square Garden Co. to build what’s certain 
to be the talk of the town. There’s no “if” about it: Ground will be broken this summer on MSG Sphere, a round, sensory-immersion venue, projected to hold 18,000 souls. (Think of the Republican National Convention crossed with an acid trip.) According to The Associated Press, “a massive exterior LED will be capable of making it appear as if is transforming into a globe or a tennis ball or project the event happening inside.” Imagine Donald Trump projected all over the exterior of Sheldon’s Sphere (or maybe just Adelson’s head, 360 feet tall, as he bypasses his own Las Vegas Review-Journal to deliver his views directly to the masses). Adelson has set a daunting completion date for the giant fun ball, too: New Year’s Eve 2020.
MSG Sphere will have scent-o-rama and, in places, a vibrating floor, in addition to 170,000 square feet of indoor LED screens. That’s 42.5 IMAX theaters. E-sports is one of the mooted attractions. Madison 
Square Garden CEO Jim Dolan told The AP, “Imagine instead of having five players play five players, we can have 9,000 versus 9,000 or 1 versus 17,999.” As for the transformative concept, he asked, “Just sitting there, what would it take to convince you that instead of sitting here in an airplane hangar in Las Vegas, you are sitting in your chair in the polar ice cap or an Amazon rainforest? Obviously if you are in the polar ice cap, you have to feel cold; you have to see the glacier. That is essentially what we are building: an attempt to convince you that you are somewhere else.”
If Sheldon’s Sphere succeeds, he could export the concept to Japan, where it would give him a compelling case for one of the three integrated resorts. (We don’t think he’s got the real estate for it in Macao, but it would be exciting if he did.) The ante on Vegas entertainment has just been raised. Your move, gentleman.
Speaking of Macao, in a report entitled “Premium is the New Mainstream,” Sanford C. Bernstein analysts look at brand loyalty in 
Macanese casinos, finding that VIP players prefer Melco Resorts & Entertainment and Wynn Resorts properties. Conversely, lower-end customers could be said to prefer other brands. Quoth the report, Melco and Wynn “have the highest percentage of respondents with monthly income greater than CNY15,000 (US$29,000 annually).” Younger customers favor Melco, while older ones gravitate to Wynn and Sociedade de Jogos de Macau. The average player is 35, male and makes $2,979 a month. Melco has a plurality of Millennials (38%) while Wynn’s bread and butter (58%) are forty-somethings and older. If you think Millennials are where it’s at, think again: “People aged 35 to 44 years are a key growth area for Macau premium players. Over the next five years, this demographic is expected to increase by 3 million people to 190 million … Into mid-May, Macau has continued to surprise on the upside this year,” wrote the Bernsteins. The enclave is 22% up, year to date. Not too shabby.
