Maybe the third try will be the charm. Australian entrepreneur Josh Kearney has announced an $800 million, extreme-sports-themed resort, to arise just northeast of Town Square Mall (built on the grave of the troubled Vacation Village Casino). The 
Edge, as it’s called, will have two swimming pools, 614 hotel rooms, more sporting options than you can shake a racquet at and (of course) a casino. As covered by an eagerly skeptical Las Vegas Review-Journal, it’s Kearney’s third shot at a Sin City development, previous attempts having included 2013’s never-built Vegas Extreme, which would have cost a mere $50 million. Kearney wasn’t forthcoming with details of financing but, with Wynn Paradise Park having gone on indefinite “hold,” this is Wall Street‘s best chance of funding a new body of water along the Las Vegas Strip. The R-J isn’t wrong to look a little askance at Kearney’s dream. Except for aptly named Lucky Dragon Casino, success has been scarce along the Strip of late.
* “The casino is the catalyst that makes the resort work,” says one expert with regard to a $2.3 billion resort planned for Australia‘s Gold Coast, one of several projects whose finances are wobbling under unstable VIP play –down 45% in the first 23 months of FY17. The unresolved fate of The Crown 18 has further added to the uncertainty. 
“Beijing has been a bit stricter about allowing access of money into Macao and the ability to raise funds for a project like this is directly impacted,” said Justin Fung, CEO of Aquis Australia, which has temporarily put the kibosh on a $7.6 billion mega resort project.
“A lot of these ambitious plans were conceived prior to the crackdown on corruption by the Chinese authorities, which has hit casino revenues in Macao and elsewhere,” explains Bond University boffin Sudhir Kalé. One company that says it is standing fast is Crown Resorts, which has committed $1.5 billion to a Sydney megaresort. But James Packer‘s company may have to rethink its business plan, which scorned video poker and low-limit tables. It’s hard to have champagne tastes when your players have a beer budget.
* “They’re already a poor tribe. I see it as imminently unfair to this tribe. It’s a shame that this was allowed to happen.” Thus spoke state Sen. Rob Cowles (R), on behalf of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians, which is being pushed into an economic corner by a expansion $33 million Ho-Chunk Wittenberg. A study commissioned by the tribe determined that the Stockbridge-Munsee would lose $22 million in annual revenue. (Two Ho-Chunk casinos would lose $8 million but that would be more than recouped by the extra $45 million projected to be gained by an upsized Wittenberg facility.) While Gov. Scott Walker‘s administration looks askance on casino expansion, it has studied the Ho-Chunk proposal and found it within the bounds of the tribe’s compact with the state. A Stockbridge-Munsee lawsuit appears inevitable.
