According to Morgan Stanley analysts, the chances of pro-casino legislation passing in Japan this year are “quite low.” Yes, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has booted the ball yet 
again. His big push [sic] to bring casinos to the Land of the Rising Sun didn’t start until the Diet had but one month left in which to pass legislation — hardly propitious timing for so controversial an issue. Abe’s only hope, having frittered away a majority in both Houses of Parliament, is for gridlock to move the adjournment date from Nov. 30 to mid-December. Morgan Stanley blames Abe’s weak hand on the expenditure of political capital on the Trans-Pacific Partnership and uncertainly following the presidential election over here. Heck, Abe doesn’t even have a consensus within his own party: Morgan Stanley estimates that 80% of the ruling Liberal Democrats are behind him on the casino issue and he can’t look to help from frequent coalition partner, the Komeito Party: It’s against gambling.
We’ve lost track of the number of times casino legalization was just around a Japanese corner. Major gaming companies thought this was finally it. Las Vegas Sands committed to Continue reading
Vegas himself, Wayne Newton. The latter’s people are trying to have it both ways, saying that the peafowl were present when Newton originally bought the estate but also remarking, “These are feral peacocks. This is a neighborhood problem, not a Newton problem, in fairness.” (Newton lawyer Jay Brown also offered this non-denial denial: “We never bought a peacock. We never brought in a peacock.”) But how is the neighborhood to solve the problem when the birds are making the Newton ranch their base of operations?
oppose Sheldon Adelson‘s anti-Internet gaming legislation if only the R-J would endorse him. It was, if true, a poor bargain. The R-J is a piddling newspaper in the grand scheme of things and its political endorsements (anyone remember anti-casino scold Sharron Angle? Or its threefold endorsement of Marco Rubio?) are widely ignored: The Silver State went “blue” at the presidential, senatorial and congressional levels this year, so Trump could have kept his Faustian pact in his back pocket. Perhaps he made his promise knowing that Adelson’s RAWA has bombed in Congress this year and was likely to do so again without any intervention from him. The congressional makeup has not changed enough to affect the political calculus.
win for the Seminoles and not entirely unforeseen, given how poorly the State of Florida’s lawyers performed before Judge Hinkle. While we wouldn’t be surprised to see Gov. Rick Scott (R) appeal the decision, his negotiating position vis-a-vis the Seminoles is considerably weakened, giving him an incentive to wrap up a new, clean compact as soon as possible. Lawmakers have balked at Scott sending them a compact that was garlanded with concessions to the state’s parimutuels that would have allowed them to cut back on live racing while still offering poker and slots. Now that a compact-free Seminole Tribe can continue gaming with impunity, we think Scott will want to cut a deal and get a slice of that blackjack revenue sooner rather than later.
vessel was up 3%, to $7 million. Horseshoe Hammond declined 6% but still walloped the market with $34 million. Ameristar East Chicago pulled in almost $18 million, a 4.5% slippage. Although it draws primarily on a different market (Michigan), Boyd Gaming‘s Blue Chip was 5% down, making $13 million. Mid-state, French Lick Resort did well, up 4% to over $7.5 million, and so did the racinos: Hoosier Park banked $15 million (+3%) and Indiana Downs did better still — $19 million, for a 5% gain.
to be 430 tons of toxic dirt turned out to be 9,980. If you’re worried about asbestos issues (a major consideration in demolishing the Riv), don’t be. The tainted soil was in the vicinity of a several diesel-oil-storage tanks. This unpleasant discovery will up the cost of tearing down the Riviera by $1.6 million, to $44.6 million. The Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority has approved the additional expenditure but may still be on the hook for the extra funds: The final determination will be made by the Nevada State Petroleum Cleanup Fund. The latter has a budget that tops out around $9 million, so crossing the palm of the LVCVA with an extra $1.6 million takes a big hunk out of the fund’s remedial cash.
spring’s effort was a Chinese fire drill.) Since Straub plans to lease the casino proper to an outside operator, he tried to have it both ways, collecting a slice of gaming revenues as landlord while not having a gaming license. The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement wasn’t buying that argument and says Straub needs to get a license. We can think of no reason why he couldn’t. Compared to some of the people who have been licensed in the Garden State, Straub is a saint. However, his choice of managerial talent has us a bit 
had him as a one-in-five underdog or worse. Their wallets are fatter today, while bookies are softly cursing the polling industry for its “Dewey Defeats Truman” misfire. And, as a side bet, who would have expected the popular vote and the Electoral College to go separate ways for the second time in 16 years? (That, at least, was the situation as of 10:50 p.m., when major newspapers seem to have stopped tracking the raw vote count.) As for What It Means, that is above my pay grade. I will leave it to a far wiser head, that of the star of Mark Twain Answers All Your Questions, which played Las Vegas last summer. Asked “What is Brexit?”, “Twain” replied, “Wait four months. You’ll understand.” (In fact, the Trump forces used the same social media tools the pro-Brexit campaign did.)
Cleveland‘s $15 million take was a 14% fall while Jack Cincinnati stumbled 11%, grossing $14 million. The only Gilbert property where the rebranding has taken hold is ThistleDown Racino, up 4% to $10 million. Of course, unless informed otherwise one should always assume that the top dog in Ohio is Hard Rock Rocksino, grossing almost $19 million, a 7% gain for Hard Rock International. Statewide, gaming revenues were placid, flat with last year, in part due to a 9% decline in table wagering.
a barn with a shotgun. It heavily implied that Trump would get behind Sheldon Adelson‘s crusade to ban Internet gaming. Somebody’s not been paying attention. Private Citizen Trump has tried to get into the ‘Net-betting business and says it’s a multi-billion-dollar industry on which the U.S. is losing out — and he’s right. As for the other major area in which federal policy and gambling intersect, tribal gaming, the impact of a Trump presidency is hard to forecast. Trump was against it (vehemently) in New York State but jumped with both feet into the California market, one of his more successful casino endeavors. So, whether he’d continue the Obama administration’s tribal honeymoon or revert to the more restrictive policies of George W. Bush is anyone’s guess.
promised us) election roundup. By this shortcoming, the AGA flunked one of its mandates, which is to keep voters appraised of gaming-related ballot issues in their area. Fortunately, Global Gaming Business 
extend the Monorail to Mandalay Bay, where it would be within walking distance of the planned NFL stadium. (And even if the [your city here] Raiders don’t move to Las Vegas, the county is committed to building at least a $500 million stadium, mainly for the benefit of UNLV.) Among the changes to the existing Monorail would be a stop near Sands Expo Center, meaning that Sheldon Adelson has belatedly seen the benefit to his convention business … And wants to be tied as closely to his stadium as infrastructure will permit.
Not even the auxiliary power kicked into gear. It seems that Paris was the victim of some ineptitude by its maintenance staff. Workers drilling deep within the resort, in its boiler room, merrily sliced right through the main power cable, cutting off both regular and backup power to Paris, and forcing the evacuation of the property. Normal operating conditions were restored by 10:30 in the evening but guests weren’t allowed back onto the premises until one in the morning today. (The extra delay was prompted by the need to check the readiness of fire-safety systems.) Only 11 people, mercifully, were trapped in elevators — and rescued — but a leg amputee said he and elderly customers had to struggle down dark stairwells without any customer assistance.
tentatively rejected his bailout plan for the city. The kibosh was put on it not by Gov. Chris Christie (R) or pal state Sen. Stephen Sweeney (D) but by relatively obscure Department of Community Affairs Commissioner Charles Richman … An ironic moniker for a man dealing with a pauper city. Richman faulted the Guardian plan — which calls for selling everything from Bader Field to city-owned filing cabinets (no kidding) for not going far enough. He was skeptical of the municipal water authority being able to finance the Bader Field sale and said the city “has had ample time to improve the city’s financial condition and yet has avoided doing so in any meaningful way.” He also faulted city leaders for underestimating the cost of debt servicing and failing to dissolve the water authority.
figure so mobbed up that he was barred from New Jersey casinos in 1991 for his ties to John Gotti. Trump has denied knowing LiButti but newly unearthed video (which you can find at Yahoo News) shows the two men side by side at a 1988 Wrestlemania event in Atlantic City. Worse yet, Trump Plaza had to pay $650,000 in fines for hosting LiButti. “The Wrestlemania event is just one of many times that Trump was close to Bob, who was the biggest loser at Trump’s casinos and therefore Trump’s most important customer,” said former Philadelphia Inquirer reporter David Cay Johnston. Incredibly — well, credibly for him — Trump once said of LiButti, “If he was standing in front of me I wouldn’t know what he looked like.” Who knew Trump’s eyesight was so poor?
Mississippi Gulf Coast and continued adversity from slot routes around Par-A-Dice in Illinois. But even though the company backed some anticipated Aliante Casino and Cannery Casino Resorts revenue out of its 4Q16 projections, Greff wrote, “We continue to see a solid LV Locals macro (population, job, wages are all moving in the right direction: up).” While noting many of the same pluses and minuses, Deutsche Bank analyst Carlo Santarelli was more circumspect in his forecast, warning that an increase in Affordable Care Act premiums could impinge upon discretionary spending, causing him to project very modest revenue growth going forward. This is the first time I’ve seen Obamacare referenced in an analyst note, giving Santarelli’s preview the aspect of novelty. The Borgata sale provided a one-time, $900 million cash infusion, contributing to a $2.97/share profit.
However, MGM believes that the Land of the Rising Sun is one of the world’s few markets where you can hit pay dirt that justifies that level of investment. Certainly not South Korea, where the restrictions on gambling by the citizenry are also a deterrent to a heavy capital commitment. At minimum, MGM is promising just under $5 billion toward a Japanese casino, numbers clearly meant to dazzle the Diet and bolster Prime Minister Shinzo Abe‘s latest pro-casino push. (Abe never really seems to “push” the issue, merely nudge it gently.) MGM CEO Jim Murren‘s pitch is contingent on the megaresort said being in Tokyo, Osaka and Yokohama but if the company funds the project through its REIT — so says Reuters — “multiple blue-chip companies” could get in on the deal.
analyst Carlo Santarelli took the numbers with a couple of grains of salt, noting that it was a holiday month and a possible, second VIP-player “retrenchment” might be on the horizon. That being said, both Parisian and Wynn Palace seem to be driving improved results, as was hoped of them. At this time last year the enclave was in free fall, with gaming revenues down 22%. Last month’s numbers were the strongest in 21 months, to give you an idea of the depth of the trench in which operators found themselves. Not even a visit from China‘s premier measurably dampened the October results, though. Neither did Typhoon Haima or the detention of The Crown 18, although the latter could chill VIP play going forward.