That elastic band which is American consumers’ gambling budget may have tightened in Illinois and gone slack in Ohio, but it’s expanding nicely in Maryland, now that table games are part of the mix. Sayeth the Maryland Lottery, revenues for fiscal year 2013 were 14% above expectations. It’s also a 57% year/year increase … although the latter figure also includes new gambling product that wasn’t available a year ago (i.e., Rocky Gap Casino Resort).
One must also note that Cordish Gaming‘s Maryland Live is carrying the 
industry, representing 77% of last month’s take. But Rocky Gap is getting the best bang for the buck on table games: It may have grossed but $4.7 million last month, but it was almost evenly divided between slots and (lower-taxed) taxed tables. Cordish didn’t fare so badly, drawing 30% of its revenue from tables. Penn National Gaming‘s Hollywood Perryville managed to make the least of its new tables, which generated 17% of the overall gross. It won’t help Penn’s case for a racino in Prince George’s County when civic leaders take note that Penn had the first casino in the First State and still managed to fall on its butt.
Having long since consigned the X Train from Los Angeles to Las Vegas to the B.S. Bin, I couldn’t be less surprised that yet another delay has 
been announced. If baloney were currency, this pipe dream would have been securitized long ago. Leaving aside the impracticality of pinning so many hopes on rail-borne gambling cars (which would be only sporadically available for for-money play), there’s a mounting pile of oddities. The Las Vegas Review-Journal‘s Tim O’Reiley helpfullychronicles the biggest of the bunch, which include a wildly fluctuating budget (from $35 million to $150 million to $80 million) and a train station that’s been relocated to North Las Vegas … nobody’s idea of a convenient point of disembarkation. And that’s just the iceberg’s tip, including some self-dealing involving the purchase of the “luxury cars,” currently not very luxurious. Besides, $198 for a round-trip fare from L.A. and back seems pretty rich — certainly not much incentive for SoCal customers to give up car, bus or even air travel.
Exit cashing. The recent and precipitate departure of Las Vegas Sands CFO Kenneth Kay (right) looks increasingly involuntary. Scarcely was the ink dry on his resignation [sic?] than he liquidated $7.7 million in Sands stock — a vote of no confidence in CEO Sheldon Adelson from one of his erstwhile top lieutenants. Out of 148,000 shares, Kay kept only 1k. Howard Stutz‘s sources tell him Kay was “let go” for no particular reason. It sounds like Adelson felt like kicking a dog and Kay had the misfortune to be in the closest proximity.
Good news for Steve Wynn. Sighs of relief must be sweeping through the halls of Wynncore now that the SEC has ended its inquiry into Wynn Resorts‘ $135 million largesse to the University of Macau Development Foundation and found no impropriety, despite allegations to the contrary by the ethically challenged Kazuo Okada. Reached on his yacht off the Spanish coast, Steve Wynn channeled his inner Sheldon Adelson. Instead of enjoying the moment, he blamed much of the fuss on “the damned newspapers.” A pesky thing, that free press. It’s inconvenience that neither Wynn nor Adelson has to cope with in their beloved Red China, of course.
Wynn’s fit of choler masks the bigger implications of today’s news. Now that the SEC cloud has passed, regulators in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania should have no grounds for barring Wynn Resorts from their fair states. Now that Wynn is “buying American” again, those states should be clamoring for his business, the best product in gaming.
