I’ve been debating whether or not to give Global Gaming Expo a pass this year and this morning’s dispatch from Deutsche Bank‘s Carlo Santarelli didn’t exactly quicken my pulse. His prediction? A “quiet” G2E, due to slow growth in the industry itself. Instead of significant new product, Santarelli forecasts a variation on what Steve Friess has dubbed The Next Little Thing: upgraded server platforms and new software. “Broadly speaking, we expect product innovation to again take a back seat to the overhang stemming from limited visibility and a lack of reasons for optimism regarding an uptick in replacement activity.” Suppliers, however, need to clearly articulate how they’re going to pivot into Internet gambling, if — or more likely, when — it is legalized, he advises.
Speaking of Santarelli, he’s got preliminary September numbers from Macao, where revenue growth just keeps booming. Strong table-game hold is making it a bonny month for Melco Crown Entertainment (17.5% of market share) and a poorish one for Wynn Macau (11%). With Sociedade de Jogos de Macau, Galaxy Entertainment and Melco having cornered two-thirds of the market (despite low hold at Galaxy), U.S. operators find themselves in the unusual position of all bringing up the rear together.
Vegas Inc. is making a big deal of having sent an editor to Macao to cover the phenomenon, although the first part could have been reported from any desk in Las Vegas. (It reads like some of my old Business Press copy.) Even so, it makes interesting reading whether Vegas is doing enough to market to Chinese customers and whether Macao will eventually decimate Vegas’ Asian player base. Although casino debt is unenforceable in China, giving no-interest loans to whales in Vegas can be risky business, too, according to inside expert Bill Zender. They’re apt to interpret the interest-free money as a gift and simply fly away with it, beyond the reach of Assistant D.A. Bernie “Dr. Evil” Zadrowski, who’s been playing a losing hand lately.
Crystals is feeling frisky toward tenants … so long as they are named “Eva Longoria.” The mall is willing to eat at least $1 million in back rent as part of a bailout deal arranged by Tilman Fertitta. Not only that, it has managed to leverage itself into a position to dictate that Fertitta or any other would-be buyer of Beso has to take Longoria as part of the package. Her celebrity cachet hasn’t done “boo” for Crystals, so the mall’s infatuation with its one (deadbeat) celebrity tenant is not easily fathomed — or is it?
