{"id":14107,"date":"2014-07-16T11:53:09","date_gmt":"2014-07-16T19:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=14107"},"modified":"2019-07-11T08:58:09","modified_gmt":"2019-07-11T16:58:09","slug":"russian-roulette-in-boston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/russian-roulette-in-boston\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian roulette in Boston"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Due to <strong>Boston<\/strong> Mayor <strong>Martin Walsh<\/strong>&#8216;s refusal to go to arbitration with <strong>Wynn Resorts<\/strong>, the <strong>Massachusetts Gaming Commission<\/strong> finds itself in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/wynn005.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-12603\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/wynn005-300x168.jpg\" alt=\"(010914 Everett, Ma) Renderings for the proposed Wynn Casino in Everett.\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/wynn005-300x168.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/wynn005-150x84.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/wynn005.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>an unexpected role. It&#8217;s mulling other surrounding-community agreements from around the state and trying to measure the economic impact of a <strong>Steve Wynn<\/strong> casino on Boston. The irascible Walsh is playing a high-risk game here: The commission could decide that he&#8217;s opted out of surrounding-community status, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lasvegassun.com\/news\/2014\/jul\/15\/boston-mayor-no-win-situation-wynn-will-boycott-ar\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">in which case Boston won&#8217;t get beans from Wynn<\/a>. It probably won&#8217;t come to that but it&#8217;s a real possibility.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Mohegan-Sun.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-10453\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Mohegan-Sun.jpg\" alt=\"Mohegan Sun\" width=\"300\" height=\"186\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Mohegan-Sun.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Mohegan-Sun-150x93.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>* Caught between the hammer of <strong>Resorts World New York<\/strong> and the anvil of <strong>Twin River Casino<\/strong> in <strong>Rhode Island<\/strong>, the tribal casinos of <strong>Connecticut<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/bostonherald.com\/business\/business_markets\/2014\/07\/wagering_revenue_continue_tumble_at_conn_casinos\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"broken_link\">had another rough go of it last month<\/a>. Slot handle was down 5% at <strong>Foxwoods Resort Casino<\/strong> and revenue was off 13% (which implies\u00a0players were taking Foxwoods to the cleaners).<br \/>\nDrop and revenue were down 10% alike at <strong>Mohegan Sun<\/strong> (above).\u00a0The latter&#8217;s CEO, <!--more--><strong>Robert J. Soper<\/strong>, tried to put the best face on it, blaming\u00a0<span style=\"color: #262626;\">&#8220;continued softness not only in this market but in most mature gaming markets throughout the industry.&#8221; Mohegan Sun was, he announced,\u00a0&#8220;clearly focused on profitability.&#8221; Well, we certainly hope so.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Taking <a href=\"http:\/\/vegasseven.com\/2014\/07\/15\/online-gaming-slow-steadys-just-right\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"broken_link\">a convincingly contrarian point of view<\/a>, Prof. <strong>David G. Schwartz<\/strong> argues that if &#8220;<span style=\"color: #000000;\">online gaming in the U.S. is to have a future, it may be best for a &#8216;slow&#8217; rollout that&#8217;s unmarked by either sky-high revenues or major compliance issues.&#8221; He points out that, in the <strong>United Kingdom<\/strong>, online play grew incrementally, from 9% of all player losses in 2009 to 16% last year. &#8220;For decades, slot play was a small part of total casino win,&#8221; Schwartz writes of our reluctance to adopt new technologies. &#8220;Eventually, though, slots came to dominate American gaming.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Las Vegas<\/strong> has a larger population than the entire state of <strong>Delaware<\/strong>, so perhaps it&#8217;s no surprise that the latter&#8217;s online-poker gross to date ($935,000) is only slightly more than what <strong>Nevada<\/strong> generated in March alone. Significantly higher grosses in <strong>New Jersey<\/strong> (&#8220;an online titan&#8221;) can be partially attributed to the wider range of games available. &#8220;<span style=\"color: #000000;\">Three states have enacted regulatory controls that have allowed players to bet online with no major snafus,&#8221; Schwartz concludes. &#8220;That\u2019s not a headline-grabber, but that\u2019s the whole point of regulation.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Bravo to <strong>MGM Resorts International<\/strong>\u00a0for providing special job fairs for military veterans and their families. Theirs is a part of American society for which not enough is done, so MGM is to be applauded for reaching out and doing its part.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Due to Boston Mayor Martin Walsh&#8216;s refusal to go to arbitration with Wynn Resorts, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission finds itself in an unexpected role. It&#8217;s mulling other surrounding-community agreements from around the state and trying to measure the economic impact &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/russian-roulette-in-boston\/\">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":[23,164,166,120,22,37,112,11,167,101,25,141,32],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14107"}],"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=14107"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24498,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14107\/revisions\/24498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}