In a Thursday media event, the Culinary Union called for casinos to continue paying their inactivated employees for as long as the Coronavirus crisis lasts. Said Unite-Here President D. Taylor, “The industry, obviously, is a very profitable industry. We don’t understand 
their behavior.” As many as 158,000 casino-industry workers in Southern Nevada could be out of jobs in a 30-to-90-day shutdown. The casinos will be hurting, too. The Wall Street Journal estimates a $39 billion loss for Las Vegas casinos, should they be forced to stay closed for three months. Taylor was unmoved, saying, “We don’t understand why they’re not stepping up now, particularly when they have the benefit of having some government loans that would help them retain the workers and retain the benefits.” Ironically, the workers who have been faring best during the shutdown are the nonunion staffers at Venelazzo. Meanwhile, MGM Resorts International is trying place unemployed workers at Amazon and Wal-Mart, where there is apparently a demand for employees, although the pay will not be remotely as good.
“Companies have the opportunity to take very big loans and retain their workers, and they haven’t taken advantage of that,” grumbled Taylor. “A lot of these aren’t cash-poor, that’s not the problem. They just don’t have the will to do this.” There’s a fair amount of truth in that. Taylor added, “The industry’s done well, and we think they should step up and pay people through this closing.” Looking forward, Culinary Secretary-Treasurer Geoconda Argüello-Kline warned that (much as happened after the mass purge following 9/11) what casino companies do now will color the next labor negotiation. For their part, casino companies generally insist that they need to conserve cash in order to recover more quickly when the opportunity arises.
And when will that be? As our readers frequently point out, probably not until Coronavirus testing is widely available, which is hardly the case at this point—or in two weeks. Nevada‘s Covid-19 situation is that of having 28,335 test performed, 2,700 positive results, 20,877 negatives and 111 deaths. 62% of licensed and staffed hospital beds are occupied, 70% of ICU rooms, and 41% of available ventilators. Case numbers continue to trend upwards, which makes us think that a May 1 reopening of casinos and resorts is quite premature.
* Donald Trump must not have read American Gaming Association President Bill Miller‘s letter to him about Small Business Administration strictures against helping small casinos. 
“Nobody’s told me about it, but I’ll look at it. It’s a great state,” The Donald said, presumably meaning Nevada, “they do a great job.” Had Trump peruses his correspondence, he would have seen Miller’s plea that “As it stands, the [SBA] policy discriminates against these mainstream businesses and, more importantly, the hundreds of thousands of employees who rely on gaming for their livelihood.” Amen.
* Need someplace to hide until Covid-19 blows over? If you’ve got a spare $18 million, this little pied-a-terre can be yours. It’s a complete Vegas rambler … built underground. Your 18 mil gets you one year’s caretaker service, a spa, pool, waterfall, fountain, and “500 linear feet of floor to ceiling illuminated murals of landscapes of wide open spaces simulating day, dusk, dawn and night modes.” The product of late-Seventies nuclear anxiety, the subterranean bungalow is the perfect place to wait out a pandemic, even if the furnishings are hilariously demodé.
* Make $38 million a day? Nothing to it. There better not be if yours is a Macao casino and you wish to stay out of red ink this year. Right now, 
the casino enclave is falling almost $30 million a day short of that benchmark. Fortunately, the casino operators are sitting on billions in liquidity, especially Galaxy Entertainment, which can absorb seven years of losses if it defers Galaxy Cotai‘s second phase. Sociedade de Jogos de Macau “has four years (or three years even if it finishes Grand Lisboa Palace), Sands/Melco/Wynn have about two years, and MGM over a year,” added JP Morgan analysts.
* Doesn’t converting video gamers into slot players, via skill-based slots, seem supremely beside the point right now?
* Finally, congratulations to the Ione Band of Miwok Indians, which just won an eight-year fight to obtain reservation land in Plymouth, California. The Bureau of Indian Affairs took the disputed land into trust for the Miwok, which is just east of Sacramento. Their competitors will be Harrah’s Northern California and Jackson Rancheria Casino. The Miwok casino was to be the largest of three, with 2,000 slots and 40 tables, plus a 250-room hotel. However, those plans may be in flux. “Certainly, the Coronavirus pandemic has thrown a wrench into our plans,” Chairwoman Sara Dutschke told the media.
