$1.75 million was the magic number to get CG Technology out of detention with the Nevada Gaming Commission. In addition, $250,000 will be laid on the Nevada
Council for Problem Gambling, a settlement provision we can totally get behind. It was a close scrape for CG, which has a dreadful regulatory record in Nevada. A thorough housecleaning would appear to be in order, considering that CG had a close scrape with license revocation this time around. Going forward, CG should operate as though it were under a microscope — which it probably will be.
* When the government in Macao makes a suggestion it’s really an order in disguise. Now the enclave’s hoteliers are being requested to add 1,000 rooms a year. Macao Government Tourist Office supremo Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes 
mused, “You can’t build 10,000 rooms overnight. I would say adding 1,000 to 2,000 new rooms every year would be a sustainable level of development because you also need to give people an opportunity to sell the rooms and use up that additional capacity. A rate of increase of 1,000 rooms per year would be a good number to increase supply but allow us to effectively market that capacity.” She didn’t mention any names but the companies with the scratch to add hotel capacity are the city’s six casino concessionaires. Considering that their licenses are coming up for rebid we’ll see how responsive they are — there’s already been movement at Wynn Palace on this front.
* California tribal casinos are butting heads again with the state’s card rooms over the alleged use of banked card games (where you play against the house) in the latter. Specifically, the plaintiffs are the Rincon Band of Luiseno Indians and Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians. They’re targeting a long list of card rooms, headed by Larry Flynt‘s Hustler Casino. “It’s a problem we’ve been addressing for years through the administrative process, all to no avail. We are now forced to challenge this through the courts. We are simply asking that cardrooms comply with the law,” sighed Santa Ynez Chairman Kenneth Kahn. The card rooms are charged with, among other things, being a “public nuisance.” Well, that’s one I’ve never heard before.
* Kudos to MGM Resorts International for taking the lead in the elimination of plastic straws from Las Vegas casinos. It will phase out the environmentally unfriendly straws at all properties, starting with Aria and Mandalay Bay. Also going green is the Four Seasons chain, one link of which is nestled within MBay.
