Whew! For a while it was looking as though MGM Grand Cotai wouldn’t make it out of the starting blocks in time for Chinese New Year. However, the megaresort opened yesterday, with room to spare before the all-important holiday. Architecturally the most striking of all the Macanese casinos, MGM now has to prove itself in the business department, especially after being hobbled by a governmental allocation of only 125 table games, plus 52 imported from the peninsula. (MGM can draw on the supply at MGM Grand Paradise, but that’s a limited pool of 427 tables.) With 1,972 rooms, Grand Cotai triples MGM’s inventory of hotel rooms in the enclave and, in the frills department, boasts 28 Qing Dynasty carpets as part of its decor.
“Based on the numbers we are seeing, the reservations we have got, it was very important for us to open before [Chinese New Year],” MGM China CEO Grant Bowie. As Reuters added, with regard to the timing, “Macau’s January numbers stormed past expectations with a 36 percent year-on-year jump, the 18th gain in a row, on demand from big whale gamblers and mom-and-pop mass punters.” Much of the future of the two MGM casinos will depend on how varied their offerings are and how much they do the diversify the Macanese market, which depends on gambling for 80% of its economy. Bowie was acutely aware of this, telling reporters, “Concession renewals will be determined on diversifying Macao into more than just a gaming town.”
* If Steve Wynn thought that by resigning as CEO of Wynn Resorts he was out of trouble with the Nevada Gaming Control Board, he thought wrong. The NGCB has set up a complaint form online “in response to an influx of communications regarding the sexual misconduct investigation against the casino mogul.” Should Steve Wynn keep his Nevada gaming license he almost certainly faces a severe fine for bringing discredit upon the Silver State’s casino industry, the kind of opprobrium visited upon the likes of anti-Semite Ralph Engelstad. The dam holding back the charges of sexual misconduct against Wynn has clearly burst and there’s no restraining the freshet now.
Wynn also got a kick in the pants from the Boston Rape Crisis Center, which implored the state that it shouldn’t be “stuck with a monument to a man forced out of his job due to multiple allegations of sexual assault.” It lumped Wynn with Larry Nassar and Harvey Weinstein. “We are at a tipping point in how our culture responds to sexual harassment 
and assault. Massachusetts has an important opportunity to show leadership by demanding that the companies who do business here are held accountable when they look the other way in response to reports of workplace sexual harassment and abuse,” said Executive Director Gina Scaramella in a formal statement.“Forcing Wynn’s name from this project will not undo the damage caused by decades of sexual assault. But we have a choice. Let’s insist on community accountability.” The broadside was directed at the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, Gov. Charlie Baker (R) and Attorney General Maura Healey, Wynn Resorts evidently having been determined to be a lost cause.
* “I realize there are communities around the Commonwealth that don’t want casinos near their communities. I understand that perspective. But for those of us that already have a casino, let us decide for ourselves,” wrote Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce President Brent Cooper in a powerful stemwinder imploring that the Bluegrass State be allowed to vote on the issue. He pointed out, with the advent of casinos in Ohio, 1.2 million Kentuckians were within 20 minutes’ drive of a casino — a situation worsened when the Paducah, Illinois, and Ashland, West Virginia, markets are taken into account. “If you want proof, visit the parking lots of casinos in Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, West Virginia and Tennessee [sic], and count the number of Kentucky license plates,” Cooper added. In light of proposed cuts to education funding and state services, it becomes imperative to consider casinos, he argues. It’s that or let “hundreds of millions of dollars” enrich neighboring states.
