If you’re a Wynn Resorts shareholder and you’re following rising trade tensions with China, you’ve a right to be nervous. Wynn derives 69% of its revenue from Macao, giving a certain truth to Steve Wynn‘s old 
quote that “We’re really a Chinese company.” Las Vegas Sands is not far behind, at 65%, making them the most- and third-most exposed U.S. companies of $3 billion. (Qualcomm occupies the unenviable niche in between.) MGM Resorts International doesn’t even come close. That will be good news for CEO Jim Murren when a new wave of Chinese tariffs hits on July 6. On the other hand, an ornery Chinese government may not feel like postponing concession renewal until 2022, as MGM Grand Paradise CEO Grant Bowie has been trying to do, negotiating through Sinophile media outlets.
Two years is a long time, especially with the mercurial Trump administration in power over here. There’s no telling what the state of U.S./China relations will be, especially if Donald Trump is running for reelection and trying to pump up the economy. However, that 2020 deadline has got to be uncomfortably close for MGM, especially in terms of recouping its investment in MGM Cotai. Nationalization would be an extreme step but we don’t put it past Beijing to make an example of somebody, even an anti-Trump company like MGM. Sociedade de Jogos de Macau is making snail’s-pace progress to beat the 2020 guillotine with its Cotai Strip megaresort, and if anybody is guilty of overpromising and underdelivering it’s SJM. But would the government revoke the hometown favorite’s concession just to make a point?
In other MGM news, it has lured Wolfgang Puck, the Ronald McDonald of fine dining, away from Caesars Palace and over to Bellagio. (Yeah, the actual divorce/remarriage was consummated last winter.) Congratulation are in order, I suppose. Inaugurated by Jennifer Lopez, the new Puck eatery features — among other delicacies — prawns that are raised on-property. Is that a Las Vegas first?
* By now we’ve all heard about the guitar-shaped hotel tower rising at Hard Rock Casino Hollywood in Florida, but it’s ‘only’ part of a wider reimagination by the Seminole Tribe of their Hard Rock-
branded resorts. Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tampa is tripling its pool deck, had added a spa and created a no-smoking gaming area, and is increasing its hotel-room count from 236 to 800. In addition to the attention-getting hotel tower, the Hollywood property will double the size of its casino floor, for a total of 3,000 slots. Convention space is also on the agenda, as is a 41,000-square-foot spa and 7,o00-seat concert hall. It’s also promising a “Bora Bora Experience” that includes private pools with butler service.
We can skip over kid-friendly Hard Rock Hotel Universal Orlando and 200-room Hard Rock Hotel Daytona Beach. However it’s becoming clear, as is the case with Hard Rock Atlantic City, that the Seminoles are fast beating Las Vegas at its own game. May the best company win.
* Say what you like about Lawrence Ho, he’s got a gluttonous appetite for risk. He’s still committed to spending in excess of $10 billion (more than anyone else) on a Japan megaresort and says he’s down with all the regulatory requirements, including confining the 
gambling floor to only 3% of the total resort. He says Nippon is “still a priceless opportunity,” even if locals are restricted to three visits a week and no more than 10 a month. “It’s unfortunate that a lot of the general population in Japan think of IR as associated with pachinko and pachislot,” Ho said. “People coming to an [integrated resort] are not just coming here to gamble, there’s so much more to do.” His comments come against the ominous backdrop of unrest in the Diet. Opposition parties are pushing to dismiss a key lawmaker, which means we could kiss a summer implementation vote goodbye.
