“It put a big smile on my face,” customer Marcia Hamilton said of Encore Boston Harbor‘s reopening last Sunday. We’ll have to take the smile on faith because employees and customers alike are required to wear PPE masks. Still, Encore is back, even in a somewhat limited form. It was preceded last week by Plainridge Park and followed yesterday by MGM Springfield. The Boston Globe reported that customers were actually “excited” to apply hand sanitizer and don their masks. Good! The workforce is greatly diminished, 1,300 employees having been furloughed. Those that haven’t have been set to such tasks as ‘swooping in’ with disinfectant the moment a slot machine is vacated. Others will take your temperature at the door. Like MGM, Wynn Resorts has the advantage of having been through this already in Macao, so it’s well versed in Coronavirus response. Some of the changes are: No roaming with beverages, no handheld menus, no spa and no nightclub. No poker, craps or roulette, either, and don’t touch those cards when you’re playing 21. Still, the news is—on the whole—cheering.
More positive news: Sports betting is a hit in its first month in Colorado, posting $25.5 million in handle. This translated into $946,741 of revenue is one of the best debuts of sports betting in any state, topped only by Indiana‘s $35 million rollout. Colorado doesn’t break out revenue by operator but, no surprise, DraftKings Sportsbook/Golden Gulch Casino and FanDuel Sportsbook/Golden Gates Casino were reported to be the market leaders. One of the hits was—big surprise—table tennis, generating over $6.5 million in handle. Other popular propositions were golf, UFC, Bundesliga football, NASCAR and Korean baseball, for all you night owls. “One of the primary reasons why Colorado fared well in its first month is that the top brands were ready to go from the beginning,” remarked analyst Dustin Gouker. “Having FanDuel and DraftKings, in addition to Bet MGM and BetRivers, accepting bets on the first day of operation is unprecedented. It shows just how much confidence operators have in the future of the Colorado market.” Color us confident, too.
Why thank fed ex and other corporations? They never cared about changing team name prior. They are only doing it to protect their businesses.
Washington DC Football: for a better fit for the DC swamp politics, perhaps the “Washington Deadheads”, or as a friend suggested the “Washington Foreskins”.
The long overdue name change of the DC NFL franchise is in my opinion the result of FedEx intervening, Dan Snyder had every opportunity to do the right thing for years, but he refused… I doubt FedEx would have seen a big drop in business, the delivery of goods is gigantic and growing, but they certainly dont want to be associated front and center with racism…