Just when MGM National Harbor looked impervious to market forces it hit an October speed bump. Gaming revenues tumbled 18.5% to $60 million. The Free State was down 9% as a whole. MGM got hammered at 
the tables, plunging 36%, which negated a slots gain of 6%. Since slots are taxed at a much, much higher rate in Maryland, that’s not the direction in which MGM wanted to go. Its market share was 41.5%, compared to Maryland Live‘s 33.5%. The latter gained a percentage point to close out the month with $47.5 million in the kitty. Horseshoe Baltimore, with 13% market share, grossed $19 million for a 9% decline. Ocean Downs was up 9% to $7 million, Hollywood Perryville was flat at $6 million and Rocky Gap Casino was up 6.5% to $5 million.
Over in West Virginia, gaming revenues were flat, with a 2% slots gain offset by a 9% tables dip. Charles Town Races rode a 12% table-games jump to a 1% overall gain.
* Jumping aboard the sinking Empire Resorts ship, Genting Malaysia bought a $128.5 million position in the troubled Kien Huat Realty subsidiary. Genting USA‘s stake in Empire Resorts, parent to failing Resorts World Catskills, goes down to 38%. Can Resorts World Las Vegas pull Genting’s chestnuts from the fire? It can’t open soon enough.
* The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas is out $500K on dishonored markers given to San Jose Sharks forward Evander Kane, who rang up the debts in between playoff games against the Las Vegas Golden Knights earlier this 
year. Considering that Kane inked a $49 million contract with the Sharks in 2018, you think he could find the money to pay the Cosmo under his sofa cushions. That’s not Kane’s only problem: He’s fighting a $6 million paternity claim that alleges he promised a woman $3 million if she would abort his love child. “Anybody can say anything they want nowadays,” rejoined Kane. “I’m not really going to talk about it further, because it’s not going to help me, it’s not going to do any good.” As for Kane’s gambling debts, maybe a Golden Knights enforcer can drive lowlife Kane hard into the boards at T-Mobile Arena, just to get the point across.
* Yours truly does not eat sliders. They’re gross. However, they seem to be quite the craze at the moment and Majordomo Meat & Fish is riding that euphoria into a space at The Venetian. As Portland-based chef Gabriel Rucker explains, “People love the highbrow-lowbrow thing. You can eat a board of six sliders, have an order of foie gras dumplings, a dozen oysters, and a $300 bottle of champagne.” Joel Robuchon has also been on the slider bandwagon, albeit not in Las Vegas. The entry of Majordomo is part of a vast remake of Venelazzo‘s bar-and-restaurant scene. Public House, gone. AquaKnox, gone. “Hot pots, kabobs, and David Chang are on the way,” reports VegasEater. We’ll have more details as we get them.
* Great Britain‘s Gambling Related Harm All-Party Parliamentary Group caused a selloff in gaming stocks when it recommended reduction of wagers and prizes in Internet gambling be reduced to $2.58 per wager. GVC Holdings CEO Kenny Alexander didn’t help his cause by refusing to meet with MPs, causing him to be 
singled out for “cowardly behavior.” GVC stock fell 9% upon release of the interim parliamentary report, while William Hill was down 8% and 888 Holdings slipped 5.5%. Alexander didn’t take the slap in the face lightly, responding that the panel’s suggestions “would be highly counterproductive and do far more harm than good … [and] could lead to an increase in problem gambling, as customers move away from responsible, regulated operators towards the black market.”
According to the report, “It is now a matter of urgency that stake and deposit limits are introduced in online gambling to reduce the harm that the industry is causing.” The impulse behind this recommendation seems to be the revelation that 5.6 billion pounds sterling were lost online last year, much of it by disordered gamblers. Hence the wager-reduction recommendation, as well as one to ban the use of credit cards in ‘Net bets. Whether the panel’s prescriptions make it into law depends on the outcome of the general election that Prime Minister Boris Johnson so badly wants. Said one stock analyst, “It would be no surprise if stricter gambling controls made it into election campaigns or manifestos, which could heighten U.K. regulatory concerns once again.”
* At 700 slots and 150 tables, Mohegan Sun‘s Inspire casino in South Korea will form a very small part of a project that is truly staggering in its ambition and may presage what is expected from casino developers when they go to Japan.
