{"id":12681,"date":"2014-02-06T14:42:56","date_gmt":"2014-02-06T22:42:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=12681"},"modified":"2014-02-06T14:42:56","modified_gmt":"2014-02-06T22:42:56","slug":"foxwoods-on-the-clock-japan-land-of-opportunity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/foxwoods-on-the-clock-japan-land-of-opportunity\/","title":{"rendered":"Foxwoods on the clock; Japan, land of opportunity"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Scott_Butera\"<\/a>Foxwoods Massachusetts<\/strong> has most of what it needs: money, civic support, a name brand. But it doesn’t have a site<\/a>. Foxwoods and Fall River<\/strong> have given themselves 30 days to remedy that, a tight timespan, further complicated by the likelihood that they’ll have to negotiate with multiple property owners in order to compile a footprint big enough for “a 140,000-square-foot gambling floor, approximately 20 restaurants, a 350-room hotel, a ‘name-brand’ shopping mall, an entertainment arena, a convention center and spa<\/em>.” That’s a pretty tall order and would be even in Las Vegas<\/strong>. Factor in the number of pieces of land CEO Scott “Woody” Butera<\/strong> has to cobble together and one doesn’t envy him his job.<\/p>\n

“Lackluster” was one word used to describe casino performance in Maryland<\/strong>, which had one of its poorest recent months of the table game era. It’s worse than it looks because Rocky Gap Casino<\/strong> wasn’t open a year ago. Of $66 million in revenue<\/a>, Cordish Cos<\/strong>.’ Maryland Live<\/strong> was responsible for $54 million, with everyone else chipping in pocket change. Still, that statewide gross was a 33% increase from early 2013<\/a>, propelled by table game revenue. Cordish’s revenues grew 49%, while Hollywood Casino Perryville<\/strong> brought in 16% more than last year. Somehow, I don’t think Rocky Gap’s addition of a Bonkerz Comedy Club<\/strong> is going to have the same fiscal punch<\/a> as Cordish’s expansion of its table games area.<\/p>\n

“Japanese spend about the same amount of money on Pachinko as they do on health care<\/em>.” That’s just one of the staggering statistics that makes Japan<\/strong> look like a plum ripe for the picking by the casino industry. It’s a $227 billion\/year industry, with a ratio of one machine to every 26<\/a> Nipponese citizens. Gambling-mad though Yankees are, we have only a 404:1 ratio of gambling devices to people. It’s actually rather surprising that Japan hasn’t legalized gaming sooner, considering that its anti-gambling laws contain a Fujiyama<\/strong>-sized exception for “monetary amusement.” (Whether you or the money are being amused the law does not say.)<\/p>\n

This mixture of loopholes and official hypocrisy has nurtured a casino-ready culture, with the casino industry having the advantage of not having to send you even slightly off-site to collect your winnings. Besides, casinos would only have to collect a 5% fraction of that $227 billion poured into pachinko to emerge triumphant. Their legalization might also force Japanese leaders to come out into the sunshine and deal with the epidemic-sized problem-gambling situation in their country. Currently, they can sweep it under the rug — but having to regulate casinos may force a welcome change of policy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Foxwoods Massachusetts has most of what it needs: money, civic support, a name brand. But it doesn’t have a site. Foxwoods and Fall River have given themselves 30 days to remedy that, a tight timespan, further complicated by the likelihood … 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":[70,166,171,72,112,95,90],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12681"}],"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=12681"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12685,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12681\/revisions\/12685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}