{"id":11866,"date":"2013-10-22T09:43:18","date_gmt":"2013-10-22T17:43:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=11866"},"modified":"2013-10-22T13:32:20","modified_gmt":"2013-10-22T21:32:20","slug":"newtons-ship-sinks-a-land-of-plenty-down-under","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/newtons-ship-sinks-a-land-of-plenty-down-under\/","title":{"rendered":"Newton&#8217;s ship sinks; A land (of plenty) Down Under"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/Wayne+Newton.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-2130\" alt=\"Wayne+Newton\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/Wayne+Newton-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/Wayne+Newton-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/Wayne+Newton-150x112.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/Wayne+Newton.jpg 409w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Bad things have a way of happening to <strong>Wayne Newton<\/strong>&#8216;s property. Most recently, his yacht sank at its <strong>Lake Mead<\/strong> berth. This inspired the <em>Las Vegas Review-Journal<\/em> to lead its story with, &#8220;Mr. Las Vegas&#8217; yacht sleeps with the fishes.&#8221; His 65-foot houseboat was observed to be down by the stern last Friday <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reviewjournal.com\/news\/wayne-newtons-yacht-sinks-lake-mead\" target=\"_blank\">and sank within 20 minutes<\/a>. The news undoubtedly cast a pall over Newton&#8217;s <strong>Bora Bora<\/strong> vacation. Throw in financial disputes involving his Cadillac and private jet, and Newton just doesn&#8217;t have good vehicular karma.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cairns<\/strong>, the resort capital of the Australian state of <strong>Queensland<\/strong> is slumping badly in terms of hotel occupancy. Developer <strong>Tony Fung<\/strong>&#8216;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/2013-10-21\/china-gamblers-lured-from-macau-seen-reviving-queensland-retail.html\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"broken_link\">counterintuitive solution<\/a> is to flood the market with <!--more-->rooms, building a $4 billion resort (including a golf course, and 5,185 hotel rooms and villas). It&#8217;s part of a larger thaw in <strong>Australia<\/strong>&#8216;s casino industry, which is coming off a 17-year freeze. <strong>James Packer<\/strong> is also looking at Cairns for its expansion prospects. Swimming in a $7.3 billion deficit, the Queensland government would doubtless be only too happy to see Packer and others get into the market.<\/p>\n<p>The endgame is to woo gamblers away from <strong>Macao<\/strong>, which earned this dart from one consultant:\u00a0\u201c<em>Everyone\u2019s got a marble floor, chandelier and a Chinese restaurant now. If you had a pocket full of money and you were looking to establish a new destination in <strong>Asia<\/strong>, I don\u2019t know Australia would be the first cab off the rank<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Anyone who maintains<\/strong> that casinos don&#8217;t benefit their host communities should be required to read <a href=\"http:\/\/woonsocketcall.com\/node\/9758\" target=\"_blank\">this story<\/a>. Or <a href=\"http:\/\/niagara-gazette.com\/local\/x934962725\/Niagara-Falls-will-use-casino-cash-funds-to-buy-19-new-patrol-cars\" target=\"_blank\">this one<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bad things have a way of happening to Wayne Newton&#8216;s property. Most recently, his yacht sank at its Lake Mead berth. This inspired the Las Vegas Review-Journal to lead its story with, &#8220;Mr. Las Vegas&#8217; yacht sleeps with the fishes.&#8221; &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/newtons-ship-sinks-a-land-of-plenty-down-under\/\">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":[103,96,19,138],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11866"}],"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=11866"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11867,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11866\/revisions\/11867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}