Saved!

Illinois‘ casino industry just dodged a bullet the size of a 747 when the lower house failed to bring a gaming-expansion bill to a vote last night. A new Legislature is sworn in today, sending this colossally bad and ill-timed idea back from whence it came. As Wells Fargo analyst Carlo Santarelli added, when reporting the news, “we firmly believe the bill was ill conceived from the start.” Preach it, Brother Santarelli!

“Macau-see, Macau-do.” That’s how reporter Muhammad Cohen characterizes the imitative nature of casino development in Macao. So long as China‘s GDP continues to grow at an 8%+ rate, Macanese casino business appears sustainable. That’s good because the much-mooted economic diversification hasn’t evolved beyond “empty talk., ” according to Cohen, who says the enclave’s manufacturing sector is in a state of collapse. Thanks to the steep casino tax, the Macanese government is sitting upon a huge budget surplus but apparently has little notion of what to except rebate it to citizens and guest-workers alike, in the form of cash grants. Although a second Cirque du Soleil spectacular has been quietly scrapped following the box office struggles of Zaia, other media reports indicate that Franco Dragone‘s $250 million House of Dancing Water at City of Dreams is breaking even and is expected to go into the black this year. And it’s not as though Macao doesn’t have alluring tourist attractions, albeit ones of a subtler and smaller nature than we associate with “casino-based destination resorts,” to dust off an old Steve Wynn coinage.

True Vegas story: A New Year’s Eve reveler fell off Planet Hollywood in the wee hours of Jan. 1 and his body wasn’t found until two days later, when an employee looked out a window only to behold a corpse. Time for Caesars Entertainment to circle the legal wagons, since a lawsuit is coming, sure as shootin’.

Sheldon Adelson won’t be writing campaign checks to Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) anytime soon. Seems that when he was a federal judge, Sandoval booted the ball in a dispute over a $499,000 gambling debt, excluding evidence that would potentially have forced Las Vegas Sands to go to trial. It still might, as the case has been kicked back down the federal circuit for rehearing. Amine Nehme is clearly a man with a problem, one who needs to take some responsibility here. But, to quote my favorite line from Thelma & Louise, “The law is some tricky shit,” and Sands’ knowledge of Nehme’s attempted self-exclusion could leave the company on sandy legal footing. Fortunately for Adelson, Nevada is more lenient in these matters than, say, New Jersey. If this happened in the Garden State, Sands would be out the half-million clams plus a whopping fine on top of it.

Both Sands and archrival Wynn Resorts were busy laying a charm offensive on Florida lawmakers this week. The latter are fast-tracking legislation that would carve out four or five casino zones in the state. The protected-monopoly aspects of the proposed bill are ripe for favoritism when it comes to ruling which company gets which market, as has happened in Pennsylvania. (It’s one, somewhat defensible thing, in my opinion, to assign casino licenses to Cities X, Y & Z, quite another to actively prohibit competition.) Given what we’ve seen of the Sunshine State market, the notion of starting with a $3 billion resort — and would it really take four-five years to build? — seems incautious. However, while Adelson’s and Wynn’s shareholders might balk at so large a gamble, that size of investment and the construction jobs that come with it are music to Floridians’ ears.

It’s not a slam-dunk. Much of Florida, especially up north, is hostile territory where casinos are concerned. More to the point, parimutuel operators who took the long, hard route to private-sector gambling and understandably riled that Adelson and Wynn might enjoy the benefit of a legislative shortcut. The same expedient route was proposed for dockside gambling a few years back and it didn’t go over well. However, now that the U.S. Senate has hiked — and fumbled — the legalization of online poker, add Florida to the list of potential intra-state cyber-poker jurisdictions. Budget problems being what they are, I put the “under” at four state legislatures debating it during the new biennium, to say nothing of tribes who might call Uncle Sam’s bluff on the issue.