Having long since abandoned its designs on Toronto, it seems MGM Resorts International is looking even deeper into the Great White North. According to DailyHive.com, MGM is pitching a $5.1 billion 
gambling and residential complex in downtown Calgary. Obviously New Urbanism is still alive and well in Murrenville. Whether spending over $5 billion on the Calgary market is utterly daft or not remains to be seen. Those $9 billion-$10 billion overtures to Japan have obviously loosened the lion’s purse strings. Calgary has been promised “a significant economic and tourism boost.” The jury’s still out on that one in Springfield but perhaps since Calgary is a major metropolitan area MGM will have a running start.
What does $5.1 billion buy in Canadian dollars? Try 1,450 hotel rooms, a 120,000-square-foot casino (2,000 slots and 300 tables), a 300-seat comedy club and 1,500-seat theater, 400K square feet of retail, a 150,000-square-foot convention center — I’m surprised that element isn’t bigger — 22 restaurants and a replica of Leo the Lion. Throw in three towers’ worth of condo units and, presto!, you have CityCentre North. Obviously CEO Jim Murren is going to keep banging away at that concept until he gets it right. This Canadian initiative certainly addresses two central MGM goals, namely “organic” company growth (i.e., growth through new development rather than acquisition) and the opening of new markets. Let’s keep an eye on it.
* Hard Rock Hotel & Casino will be rockin’ and rollin’ for the better 
part of another year. According to KTNV-TV, rebranding “has been pushed back until after the next Super Bowl.” Too bad, because the design for the revised porte cochere promises a beautiful new look for the property, although there’s no undoing Morgans Hotel Group‘s worst architectural bastardizations.
* Congress has been ruffling its feathers about sports betting since the Supreme Court overthrew the Bradley Act but it looks like sports wagering is coming to our nation’s capital and soon. It will be run 
under the auspices of the D.C. Lottery and taxed at 10% of gross receipts. An ex-restaurant in Capital One Arena, home to the Washington Wizards and Washington Capitals, will be the site of D.C.’s first sports book. Three locations are eligible for satellite books: Audi Field, Nationals Park and the St. Elizabeths East Entertainment & Sports Arena. $250,000 gets you a license and a two-block exclusivity zone. Chosen provider Intralot is still in negotiations with the city, so betting is probably unlikely until football season.
* Louisiana state Sen. Danny Martiny (R) is getting an early start on the legislative session in the Bayou State. Solons haven’t convened and he’s already got SB 153 in the hopper. It would permit sports
betting at casinos, riverboats and race tracks. Even if the Lege votes it through, sports wagers would have to be approved in each affected parish, but Martiny’s making a good start. One can judge the odds for parish-level approval by taking an inventory of the 47 (out of 64) that voted to approve DFS last November. The projected kickoff date for sports betting in Jan.1. Martiny’s bill would allow mobile wagering—but only on the premises of approved facilities; no “integrity fee”; wagering on college and pro games; no tax rate … yet and no mandatory use of league-approved data. If Louisiana is ready for DFS, surely it can handle the real thing.
* Does a player still lose if the dealer made errors? Singapore high roller Dr. Wong Yew Choy is using that argument to get out of a $30.5 million gambling debt to The Star Gold Coast Casino in Queensland. The house fronted Dr. Choy $141,000 “lucky money” 
plus the use of a private jet and now is suing to make him fork over his losses. According to the casino, he had $30.5 million in losses on a $35 million line of credit. The good doctor’s check bounced, hence the lawsuit. Choy says the casino initiated the line of credit and that an executive acknowledged the dealer errors in writing. He also asserts that he put a stop-payment on the check when the Star Gold Coast dealer continued to make mistakes and Choy decided not to throw good money after bad. And there, it seems, the matter will rest until court proceedings. In the meantime, would you take the doctor on as a high-risk player?
