Steve Wynn is taking the softness of the Macao market in stride. “When you see that kind of adjustment, you adjust your business. You take tables away from VIP and put them into mass or premium mass,” he told Chinese reporters. While Sheldon Adelson‘s Parisian has been slowed by a construction accident and MGM Cotai is hampered by permit issues, Wynn is sticking to his prediction of a Chinese New Year opening of Wynn Palace. He also hinted at (nongaming) investment in nearby Hengqin Island.
While Sands China and Galaxy Entertainment have been targeted for labor demonstrations, so far Wynn Macau has been exempt. His employee turnover, Wynn claims, is the lowest among Macanese casino operators. He did allow as to having worries about the labor pool being big enough to staff Wynn Palace. He said, “My outfit is spending over $4 billion on Wynn Palace. Are we going to have enough employees to run the place? Once you employ everybody in Macao … you are going to have to bring people from outside the region. Or we are going to have empty buildings and other problems that will be negative to this community?”
Wynn didn’t downplay his interest in Japan, saying, If the time comes when Japan is available, we will step up and bring our capital, our experience, our 
imagination to the table.” As for the Macao market, he predicted a shift away from gambling, much as has been seen in Las Vegas. “The energy of the resort and convention business is going to dominate the development of this community. That doesn’t mean that the government will not encourage other developments,” Wynn added, alluding to the Macanese government’s largely futile efforts to diversify the local economy. (Having gone in on casino development on a Vegas-plus scale, the government would seem to have foreclosed its options in that sphere.) There’s also some question of whether the left hand knows what the right is doing. The government has called for casino operators to provide housing for their migrant workers but a Wynn lieutenant said they’d not been contacted on that issue and anyway they were doing it already. Continue reading →
Both Boyd Gaming and Pinnacle Entertainment met with Wall Street analysts this week, everybody being in town for Global Gaming Expo. Boyd CEO Keith Smith and CFO John Hirsberg said they saw an abatement in negative business trends, now confined to specific markets instead of company-wide. Positive trends in the Las Vegas economy and less comping were seen as shoring up business on Boyd’s home turf, although spend-per-player is still 20% off peak levels.
