“Atlantic City casino owner clueless over $220M offer.” So read one of the headlines about the mystery New York City private equity firm that is ostensibly proffering $220 million (up from $200 million) for Revel and owner Glenn Straub‘s professions of ignorance about the whole matter. On the other hand, if New Jersey doesn’t give him preferential treatment and allow him to reopen the megaresort without a gaming license, “Maybe we will have to look for someone else.”
Straub’s ignorance that he wouldn’t need a gaming license for Ten is premised on the argument that he’s ‘only’ getting third-party lease payments. But where is putative casino manager Robert Landino getting that money? From the casino, of course. So Straub benefits from gambling after all. Then again, he may be playing coy about the purchase offer in hopes of extracting more bidders. With Straub it’s always difficult to tell what the endgame is.
* Scarcely were DraftKings and FanDuel splitsville than Resorts Digital in Atlantic City rushed the market with a real-money DFS application of its own. Pitching the product as consumer friendly, Resorts described it as “a simplified version of DFS that allows regular folks to enjoy the game without getting beaten by Sharks and Sports Insiders.” It could all be a big accident of timing, but Resorts’ move — initially only available on the Internet — and hasty announcement, suggests an opportunity seen and swiftly seized.
* GameCo‘s next skill-based slot will be an adaptation of popular video game Soulcaliber II. Expect it to hit casino floors (probably on the Boardwalk) late this year.
* While Japan is modeling its planned casino industry on Singapore, it’s going even farther with its planned regulations. Editorializing against the draconian regime proposed, Bloomberg enumerates some of the planned restrictions: “banning cash machines on casino floors, restricting credit card purchases of casino chips to foreign customers only, prohibiting casinos from extending credit to domestic customers, 
limiting how often domestic customers can visit gambling houses, and prohibiting Macau-style VIP junkets.” Imagine such strictures applied to Las Vegas and you have a prescription for disaster.
Bloomberg argues that only the casinos would suffer, as problem gamblers could still play the ponies and pachinko. Also, the Yakuza could empowered to fill the money-lending void, since casino markers would be disallowed. (Macao casinos might not lend money but at least they have junketeers to fill the gap.) Are American companies going to want to risk billions of dollars on such a prohibitive environment? An alternative approach would be to open casinos with relatively relaxed oversight and tighten it if problems manifest themselves. Casinos are deeply unpopular with the Japanese public and, perhaps in response, legislators risk throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
* China is having problems with underage-mobile-gaming issues, particular involving social-media leader Tencent Holdings “Honor of Kings” game. Beijing has blasted the “negative energy” of the game, branding it “poison.” While the game can be downloaded for free, it costs money to buy virtual battle items within the game, leading to children stealing money from Mom and Dad. Forbes reports one extreme case: “In Hangzhou, a 13-year-old boy jumped off the building after his father tried to stop him from playing the game, according to People’s Daily. The boy, who broke both his legs, thought he could fly like ‘Honor of Kings’ characters, his father told The Beijing News.” China leads the world in having declared gaming addiction a “clinical disorder” and new disciplinary measures appear to be on the horizon.
