Cameron McKnight of Credit Suisse is projecting gambling-revenue flatness in Macao (despite higher tax returns) through 2019 and into 2020, despite a record amount of available credit in China. “Stronger credit data may partially assuage China macro concerns, as it comes in 
tandem with other supportive measures, such as reducing the reserve requirement and cutting taxes,” he wrote. But he doesn’t think the credit-growth benefit will kick into Macao until early next year or maybe March 2020. He also warns that credit escalation is “very volatile.” In the meantime, Beijing is cracking down on the “shadow banks” that finance gamblers. VIP and premium-mass (the demographic of choice) could find life a little leaner. China’s desire to minimize capital flight remains as strong as ever. Adds McKnight, “If macro conditions worsen and/or the US/China trade dispute heats up, capital controls could be tightened – and this new policy enforced more strictly.” Chinese exports were up 9% but home prices are slackening, two important economic indicators moving in opposite directions.
Whereas stock-pickers had projected February revenues to be up 5%-10%, so far they are tracking flat. Chinese New Year visitation is up 29% but, thanks to the HKZM Bridge, many of those coming to Macao are believed to be sightseers rather than players. Whatever they were doing, they weren’t hitting the shops: Retail spending was at its lowest pace since 2005. In related news, Galaxy Entertainment busted out wage increases for workers but targeted them mostly at middle and upper management. Kudos to Sands China and Wynn Resorts for focusing recently salary hikes on floor-level employees.
* New Jersey sports books were a little too quick off the mark in posting Academy Awards odds. They had to temporarily take the betting lines down, pending regulatory approval. Now that it’s back to business as usual voters are defying the oddsmakers, putting a plurality of their wagers on Lady Gaga, not Glenn Close to take home a Best Actress statuette.
* MGM Growth Properties is raising the rent it charges MGM Resorts International at Park MGM (made more valuable by Lady Gaga)? The REIT also 
announced it would “purchase the investments MGM has made in Park MGM” for $637.5 million, another vote of confidence for the casino. In other MGM news, the company has received high marks for diversity from Forbes and Black Enterprise magazines. The former weighed the company’s performance with age, gender equality, ethnicity, disability, LGBTQ+ and general diversity issues, with the votes of affected groups given greater weight than those of non-minority employees. Keep up the good work, MGM.
* A credible source linked to the Golden Nugget Las Vegas denies that Tilman Fertitta is selling his Landry’s empire. So that presumably is the end of that. Of course, Tilman’s other financial problems, like paying for the Houston Rockets, haven’t gone away. Still, we are glad that he is staying in the casino industry because he sets the bar in almost every market in which he operates.
* Because we never get tired of linking to pictures of Sheldon Adelson‘s ludicrous (and ill-fitting) toupées, here’s a reprise of Donald Trump‘s personal lobbying for 
Sheldon to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Said an Abe confidant, “They were a little incredulous that he would be so brazen.” Abe was reportedly noncommittal, perhaps stunned into silence. As for the present day, Mr. Trump seems to be fulfilling one of Adelson’s most dearly-held wishes, sending his surrogates to gin up a war with Iran. When Sheldon Adelson talks, the White House listens.
* Speaking of security concerns, don’t go gambling in Cambodia unless you want to get your ass blown off. One of as many as five bombs in Poipet‘s Golden Crown Casino was discovered in a lavatory and subsequently detonated in the parking lot. Golden Crown was also targeted for multiple bombings in 2002, so I’d certainly give it a wide miss if I were you. Fortunately, the latest incident was averted by the Cambodian Mine Action Center, which has a lot of experience defusing land mines and other explosives, mostly legacies of Cambodia’s tragic past.
Didn’t Fertitta propose that merge to Caesar’s to begin with? Maybe there is a difference between merge and sell. Who knows. Sounds to me it didn’t go his way.