A SoCal-based player kindly shared this image from the latest Aria/M life offer:
My friend ran an experienced eye over the chips on the rail and concluded that it “must be the lowest-minimum craps table Aria has ever seen,” as there’s an aggregate $60 in chips being played. Either that or these presumable mid-rollers have blown through their bankroll, accounting for the blonde’s look of anxiety, bordering on desperation.
Unintentionally amusing as this may be, at least it’s not promoting anything irresponsible. We’re worlds away from Cantor Gaming‘s scummy push (abetted by I’ll-do-anything Assm. William Horne [D]) to legalize wide-open use of its portable gambling modules — yes, even in your hotel room. Allow me to suggest a promotional pitch, should this affront be voted into law: “Why gamble away Little Jimmy’s college fund? With Cantor’s Wall Street technology, Junior can do it all by himself!”
A picture that’s worth a New Jersey casino license.
More MGM, less Pansy Ho. That’s the bottom line of the proposed MGM China IPO. Controversial casino heiress Pansy Ho would place some of her shares on the Hong Kong bourse, as well as buy $300 million in MGM Resorts International notes, convertible to stock. The company receives much-needed cash up front and Ms. Ho potentially gets to own a big piece of MGM down the road, even as her stake in MGM’s Macao operation goes to somewhere between 23% and 29%. But the aspect of the deal that has Wall Street excited is MGM’s increase of its ownership in MGM Grand Paradise to 51%, a vote of confidence in the property that — its market-share struggles aside — is more than justified.
Analysts at J.P. Morgan worry that MGM may be “leaving some proceeds on the table” and could have extracted twice the price from Ms. Ho, based on certain cash-flow projections. However, MGM is finally and indisputably in the driver’s seat. By achieving majority control of its Chinese subsidiary, MGM also insulates itself from a potential post-Stanley Ho scenario in which Sociedade de Jogos de Macau stakeholders Pansy and Lawrence Ho achieve interlocking control of SJM, MGM and Melco Crown Entertainment. The ownership of Macao’s six casino concessions is becoming pretty incestuous as it is. MGM’s financial prophylactic seems a very wise investment.
What’s happening with that doggone Choo-Choo-to-Nowhere (aka Victorville) that Sig “The Fixer” Rogich and Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) have been trying to juice forward? Is still looks hellaciously expensive and ludicrously impractical … but I see the movie version will be in cinemas tomorrow.
Yes, watch Part One of the film version of the only book the editorial board of the Las Vegas Review-Journal has ever read! It’s kind of disturbing, though, that the Voice is of Reason is embodied by the creepy police captain from Dexter, a character so vile he makes Michael C. Hall‘s serial killer look almost virtuous.
