{"id":10919,"date":"2013-05-30T14:13:43","date_gmt":"2013-05-30T22:13:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=10919"},"modified":"2013-05-30T14:13:43","modified_gmt":"2013-05-30T22:13:43","slug":"bad-day-for-okada-good-month-for-macao","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/bad-day-for-okada-good-month-for-macao\/","title":{"rendered":"Bad day for Okada; Good month for Macao"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-10921\" title=\"Universal Manila\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Universal-Manila-300x223.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"223\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Universal-Manila-300x223.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Universal-Manila-150x111.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Universal-Manila.jpg 536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>It&#8217;s back to the starting point for <strong>Kazuo Okada<\/strong>, controversial former business partner of <strong>Steve Wynn<\/strong> and CEO of <strong>Universal Entertainment Corp<\/strong>. The latter&#8217;s attempt to enter the <strong>Philippines<\/strong> casino market (<em>left<\/em>) fell apart along with a deal with <strong>Robinsons Land Corp<\/strong>. The latter was key to the project because Robinsons was supposed to buy a majority of <strong>Eagle I<\/strong>, an Okada front company, run through subsidiary <strong>Aruze USA<\/strong>. (Why is it that wherever Okada goes, trouble follows?) Aruze&#8217;s 64% stake in Eagle I <a href=\"n.reuters.com\/article\/2013\/05\/29\/philippines-robinsonsland-casino-idINL3N0EA0Z720130529\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"broken_link\">was determined to be a ruse, a subterfuge to get around constitutional limits<\/a> on overseas ownership of Philippine land.<\/p>\n<p>Okada may still try to make the project work, going solo. But with <strong>Philippine Amusement &amp; Gaming Corp<\/strong>. holding an<!--more--> adverse opinion of his legal standing, that looks like a long shot. And with two bribery investigations hanging over Universal, this is a helluva time for potential co-investors to get into bed with Okada.<\/p>\n<p><script src=\"https:\/\/player.ooyala.com\/player.js?embedCode=g4OW11Yjplbl1c03H8Imt_ulxSWdOFly&amp;playerBrandingId=8a7a9c84ac2f4e8398ebe50c07eb2f9d&amp;width=450&amp;deepLinkEmbedCode=g4OW11Yjplbl1c03H8Imt_ulxSWdOFly&amp;height=360&amp;thruParam_bloomberg-ui[popOutButtonVisible]=FALSE\"><\/script><br \/>\n<strong>Despite predictions to the contrary<\/strong>, it&#8217;s difficult to see Manila ever putting a serious hurt on <strong>Macao<\/strong>, where the average punter wagered $1.6 million per trip in March. (Of course, many of those players are far <em>more<\/em> than average.) Chinese President <strong>Xi Jinping<\/strong> is taking a <em>laissez-faire<\/em> attitude toward the casino enclave <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/2013-05-28\/gamblers-betting-1-6-million-a-visit-aid-macau-casinos.html\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"broken_link\">and business is responding accordingly<\/a>. <strong>MGM China<\/strong> (+45%), <strong>Melco Crown Entertainment<\/strong> (+43%) and<strong> Galaxy Entertainment<\/strong> (+30%) have all seen the biggest hops in their stock price, although nobody&#8217;s crying into their beer. Galaxy, though, is doing particularly well off high-end play, considerably more so than MGM or<strong> Stanley Ho<\/strong>&#8216;s rattletrap empire of casinos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s back to the starting point for Kazuo Okada, controversial former business partner of Steve Wynn and CEO of Universal Entertainment Corp. The latter&#8217;s attempt to enter the Philippines casino market (left) fell apart along with a deal with Robinsons &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/bad-day-for-okada-good-month-for-macao\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[28,14,22,62,93,11,25,61,32],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10919"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10919"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10922,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10919\/revisions\/10922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}