“Does the fact that Macao has an Eiffel Tower now bring extra people to the market,” asked Union Gaming Group analyst Grant Govertsen rhetorically. “Yes, but their main activity here will still be gaming.” “They” includes players from as far away as the 
U.S., cushioning the blow felt from the drop-off in VIP play. At present, analysts expect Macao to close out 2016 down 3.5% in gambling revenue but to be up 7% this year, according to a survey conducted by Bloomberg News. Overnight stays are up 10% (and day-tripping is down a comparable amount) with the average length of stay just over two days. “There are definitely more reasons to come to Macao now versus two years ago and that is the key reason why overnight visitation is growing faster than total visitation,” reported Richard Huang of Nomura Holdings, who foresees continued growth in the mass-market sector. Even a bad year in Macao is a lucrative one: 2016 is expected to yield $28 billion, which only the most wildly optimistic projections for Japan can rival.
Native-son casino owners are taking a long view of the recovery. Melco Crown Entertainment Chairman Lawrence Ho calls the present “a natural recovery.” His counterpart at Galaxy Entertainment, Lui Che-Woo is waiting for sustained evidence of a recovery (one good quarter does not a turnaround make) and is putting his money on the bread-and-butter gamblers. In the meantime, Sands China COO Wilfred Wong is taking a sanguine view of Japan’s recent legalization of casinos. And why not? Macao will have at least six years in which to make hay while Japanese megaresorts are chosen, vetted and built. Wong added that the two destinations would be appealing to differing markets, with northern Chinese favoring Japan and southerners opting for Macao. (Sands supremo Sheldon Adelson has apparently settled upon Osaka and is courting it assiduously.)
* If you’re a daily fantasy sports site and want to get out of a contract with the Minnesota Wild hockey team, what do you do? Claim to be engaged in illegal activity, that’s what. Unfortunately for Ronald Doumani‘s Emil Interactive (and fortunately for DFS companies everywhere), Judge Wilhelmina Wright skated right past the issue, ruling that whether or not Doumani’s activities were illegal was not germane to the validity of his contract with the Wild. Unfortunately for the latter, Judge Wright dismissed its complaint. “This is the most bizarre argument I’ve ever seen. Essentially you’re arguing that you’re participating in a criminal conspiracy,” Wild attorney Steve Silton told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
* Only in Vegas Dept.: In return for a $20 token, you can buy a bottle of Moet & Chandon from a vending machine on the 23rd-floor Sky Lobby of the Mandarin Oriental (another reason it’s one of the best hotels in Las Vegas). You can quaff you bubbly secure in the knowledge that this is the only place in the U.S. that you can make such an effervescent transaction. In other good news for Sin City, demand from flights from Beijing is so great that Hainan Airlines is switching to larger aircraft.
* Revel/Ten owner Glenn Straub is predicting a Feb. 20 reopening of the megaresort, with a grand opening on April 1. If I were Straub, given Revel’s history, I wouldn’t choose April Fool’s Day to roll out my new pleasure palace. Also, there is still no casino operator in place. Straub is cutting it pretty fine.
No way on Revel/TEN; whatever it is being called….