Sisolak gets sick; Stanley Ho dies; Culinary discontent

Yesterday’s big announcement about casino reopenings was postponed and the off-the-cuff reaction must have been something like ‘Uh-oh. Coronavirus cases are up again.’ Not hardly. According to Gov. Steve Sisolak (D), “we continue to see a consistent and sustainable downward trajectory of percentage of positive COVID-19 cases and a decrease in the trend of COVID-19 hospitalizations. Our cumulative test positivity rate—which is the number of people testing positive against the total number of tests—has declined to 6.5 percent. We have been in a downward trend for 31 days—a full month.” No, the reason for the cancellation of the press conference in favor of a pre-taped statement was simple: Sisolak was exposed to Coronavirus (and no, Carolyn Goodman didn’t give it to him). Although he’s been tested, Sisolak says he is asymptomatic but will self-quarantine as a precaution.

While the full text of Sisolak’s statement is available, the bottom line for our purposes is that Phase Two starts May 29 and casinos will still reopen on June 4, which presumably marks the inception of Phase Three. While it would seem a higher—and safer—measure to un-shutter casinos than tattoo parlors and body-piercing shops, such are Nevada’s priorities of the moment. Brothels and “adult entertainment establishments” are still Out, as are theaters and live sporting events (cinemas can reopen if social distancing is enforced). Gyms are In, albeit with restricted facilities—no locker rooms, for one—as are bars and taverns that don’t serve food. There’s much more but you get the gist. Finally, as Sisolak says, “Wear your face covering like a badge of honor.”

* Sisolak may be a tad under the weather but Stanley Ho, 98, has departed this vale of tears. The ancient casino oligarch leaves behind a Macao in which he had a finger in every pie. Despite his seamy background, Ho was given a monopoly on Macanese gambling in the early Seventies and clung to it for three decades, until the Communist Party wrested it from his hands and invited ‘capitalist running dogs’ into the fray. Ho made his bones during World War II, having deserted his post as an air-raid warden in Hong Kong, by openly collaborating with the Japanese. His provision of goods and services to the invaders gave him the capital to start his business empire, one that eventually made him a ubiquitous force in the Macao economy.

When the Macanese government awarded Ho a subconcession to sell to the highest bidder, then-MGM Mirage came running, despite Ho’s blatant Triad associations. When New Jersey regulators balked at this alliance, then-CEO J. Terrence Lanni took his ball and left Atlantic City. (The company was subsequently invited back after diluting its partnership with the Ho clan.) Old Stanley never missed an opportunity to turn up like Banquo’s Ghost, whether at the groundbreaking for MGM Grand Cotai or its gala opening, at which he referred to it as “my casino.”

However, Father Time was catching up with Ho and his decline was exposed to the world when he became a pawn in a 2011 power struggle between wife Angela Leong and daughter Pansy Ho, the Goneril and Regan in sordid version of King Lear. By this point it was evident that the emperor had no clothes, reciting varying accounts of his loyalties off idiot boards. When his Lisboa Grand Palace broke ground, finally getting Sociedade de Jogos de Macau into the Cotai Strip, the superannuated vizier was nowhere to be been. Yesterday’s news was, if anything, anticlimactic. Ho was, unthinkably, a has-been in Macao for quite some years. SJM stock jumped at the news, assuming that a succession plan is in place. Given the internecine warfare that has scarred SJM, that’s a risky assumption.

* Gov. Sisolak isn’t the only prominent Nevadan with Covid-19 on their mind at the moment. Culinary Union Secretary-Treasurer Geoconda Argüello-Kline took her campaign for health-protocol transparency to the Nevada Gaming Commission, proclaiming “15 Culinary Union workers and their family members have died from COVID-19. That is 15 too many.” To bolster her case for full disclosure she quoted Las Vegas Review-Journal gaming scribe Richard Velotta, who has written “We’re not talking about trade secrets or disclosing materials that would give a company a competitive advantage to a rival or criminal acts by a prospective licensee. This is information that employees and guests need to know before they set foot inside a resort.”

The Culinary’s bottom line was, “To re-open Nevada casinos, we should have the highest standard of COVID-19 prevention before they are allowed to re-open. And none of us can be sure that Nevada casinos have met such standards unless you or the Governor mandate transparency and make them release detailed plans and protocols for COVID-19 prevention.”

Argüello-Kline must not have liked what she heard from the NGC because on May 26 she was at a Nevada Gaming Control Board workshop, again demanding rigorous safety for employees. “This work on the frontline will not be done by the billionaire owners, CEOs, CFOs or hedge fund investors who are going to profit from these casinos,” she said, aiming straight for the top. Her ‘ask’ was that “the Control Board should adopt our union’s public health guidelines as the minimum standard for casino operations during the COVID-19 pandemic.” She added, “The public expectation now is that the Control Board will review and approve in secrecy hundreds of re-opening plans from gaming licensees in this coming week and let these casinos re-open sometime by June 4.”

Unlike resort owners, the Culinary wants daily hotel-room cleanings. Argüello-Kline quoted the Wall Street Journal to the effect that “scaling back on daily room visits in favor of deeper cleaning before guests arrive could allow hotel owners to reduce costs down the road.” To which she responded, “But what might be the cost to worker safety?” She cited CalOSHA and the World Health Organization, asking, “What happens if someone who arrives in Vegas asymptomatic, develops symptoms here, and decides to hole up in their room for a couple of days instead of asking for medical attention? … We shouldn’t lose any more fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, or other loves ones from this preventable disease.”

* Boyd Gaming isn’t expecting its Hawaiian business to return soon … but that’s nothing compared to the difficulties of traveling to Hawaii. Even island-hopping is a difficult business. Expect to spend lots of time in quarantine.