{"id":11447,"date":"2013-09-03T11:00:29","date_gmt":"2013-09-03T19:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=11447"},"modified":"2013-09-03T11:00:29","modified_gmt":"2013-09-03T19:00:29","slug":"foxwoods-mo-money-hard-rock-brings-it-on-wishful-thinking-at-cosmo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/foxwoods-mo-money-hard-rock-brings-it-on-wishful-thinking-at-cosmo\/","title":{"rendered":"Foxwoods: Mo’ money; Hard Rock brings it on; Wishful thinking at Cosmo"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Caved, shaken down, outfoxed: Take your choice of term as Foxwoods Massachusetts<\/strong> has seemingly capitulated to Milford<\/strong> selectmen and raised its downpayment from $18 million to $34 million. All it took was a few grumblings from the aforementioned selectmen and Foxwoods flung down the most “george” offer in the Boston<\/strong> area — $1,192 per capita, plus a lot of goodies on the back end<\/a>. Why Foxwoods should be trying to outbid casino projects closer to Boston itself is a question CEO Scott Butera<\/strong> (above<\/em>) might prefer not to answer.<\/p>\n

\"\"Foxwoods, of course wants something in return. Gone is the low-profile, 660K-square-foot casino of yore, to be replaced with a 2.8 million-foot megalith. After all, those extra millions have to come somewhere and Milford selectmen may realize they’ve made a Faustian pact: much more money for much<\/em> more casino. Town chairman William Buckley<\/strong>, whose insistence on “Everett money” got this going now seems to realize he has a dragon by the tail. “I think we\u2019d certainly expect to see a far greater number of visitors,” he said, sounding stunned, “and I\u2019m curious what the impact is moving forward.” You asked for more, sir, and you got more. What did you <\/span>think<\/em> would happen? As for the financial risk to Foxwoods, that’s why they pay Butera the big bucks.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile out west, citizens of West Springfield<\/strong> are getting the hard sell<\/a> from Hard Rock International<\/strong> …
\n<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

… whose lobbying effort may be the best to date. It’s certainly been one of the most intensive.
\n<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

Like a jockey<\/strong> lugging a horse on its back, non-gaming revenues continue to carry the casino at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas<\/strong>. Maybe it’s the trend of Vegas Yet To Come (as recent numbers from Hakkasan<\/strong> at MGM Grand<\/strong> also indicate) but it’s a lot to ask of a $3.9 billion casino. CEO John Unwin<\/strong> is reporting a predominantly young customer base and predicting exponential growth in gambling revenues this year<\/a>. Nah, I didn’t believe it either, save that when you’re starting from practically nothing, any growth looks explosive.<\/p>\n

“… there has to be a gambler in there somewhere,” wailed Colliers Internationa<\/strong>l’s Josh Smith<\/strong>, sounding like the boy who reasoned that a proliferation of horse manure pointed to the presence of pony. But when you’re posting some of the highest ADRs on the Strip, though (yes, better than The Venetian<\/strong> or Wynn Las Vegas<\/strong>), that’s got to cut into the customer’s gambling budget, too. Smith argues that the amenity-driven Cosmo is influencing new development on the Strip. If so, it will be an expensive mistake that inspired more cost-effective imitators.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Caved, shaken down, outfoxed: Take your choice of term as Foxwoods Massachusetts has seemingly capitulated to Milford selectmen and raised its downpayment from $18 million to $34 million. All it took was a few grumblings from the aforementioned selectmen and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[66,18,14,4,166,165,112,11,12,32],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11447"}],"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=11447"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11448,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11447\/revisions\/11448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}