{"id":14504,"date":"2014-09-05T14:01:53","date_gmt":"2014-09-05T22:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=14504"},"modified":"2014-09-05T14:01:53","modified_gmt":"2014-09-05T22:01:53","slug":"mgm-courts-japan-more-strip-land-hits-the-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/mgm-courts-japan-more-strip-land-hits-the-market\/","title":{"rendered":"MGM courts Japan; More Strip land hits the market"},"content":{"rendered":"

Taking a veiled stab at Las Vegas Sands<\/strong> and Wynn Resorts<\/strong>, MGM Resorts International<\/strong> President William Hornbuckle<\/strong> said that a MGM \"Osaka-MGM\"<\/a>megaresort in Japan<\/strong> would be\u00a0\u201cuniquely Japanese, not a copy of an integrated resort from Las Vegas<\/strong> or Singapore<\/strong>.\u201d It would also spread the financial risk among “a consortium of leading Japanese companies.” Hornbuckle’s remarks accompanied a first glimpse of what MGM has in mind, including at least three hotel towers and a couple of cryptic pods. MGM Osaka<\/strong> would be built on Yumeshima<\/strong>, a landfill in the city’s bay.<\/p>\n

While Osaka<\/strong> is considered more casino-friendly than the government of Tokyo<\/strong>, it’s still an underdog<\/a> where consumers are concerned. But Melco Crown Entertainment<\/strong> has already come a-courtin’<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Hornbuckle\"<\/a>Hornbuckle also rolled out some diversity initiatives that may raise Nipponese hackles. He’s proposing more gender equality in the workplace, including a 30% share of managerial positions. We’ll see how that goes over in a notoriously patriarchal culture. MGM is even more bullish than Prime Minister Shinzo Abe<\/strong> on how casinos will increase tourism — 30 million by 2025. Hornbuckle was at pains to play up the impact of entertainment in Las Vegas — where it accounts for 69% of MGM’s revenue — and gloss over its lackluster performance<\/a> in Macao<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

A topic not addressed by Hornbuckle is the potential integration of pachinko parlors into casinos, which would require them to be legitimized and regulated as a form of gambling<\/a>. Also, Abe’s government seems enamored of the Singaporean model of requiring citizens to pay an entry fee to patronize a casino. Where MGM, Melco and other aspirants stand on that remains to be seen, although they’ll likely go with the flow.<\/p>\n

* Mall of America<\/strong> owner Triple Five<\/strong> is trying to dispose of the last five-plus acres it owns on the north Las Vegas Strip<\/strong>. The $86 million price tag is likely to scare off a lot of prospective buyers … unless it’s true that James Packer<\/strong> really paid $15.7 million an acre for the New Frontier<\/strong> site. Just south of the Riviera<\/strong>, the acreage is the remnant of a much larger assemblage of parcels for which it paid in the vicinity of $30 million an acre. Various hubristic megaresort plans were floated<\/a>, then abandoned as economic reality caught up with Triple Five.<\/p>\n

“Ultimately, Triple Five sold much of its north Strip property at a loss, through a process that lets people buy debt-laden real estate while avoiding the foreclosure process, county records show,” reports the Las Vegas Sun<\/em>. (A near-casualty of Triple Five’s plans was the La Concha Motel<\/strong>, whose lobby was rescued and became the visitor center of the\u00a0Neon Museum<\/strong><\/a>.) Triple Five still has 18 acres of “most vacant” south Strip land, so we’ve not heard the last of them.<\/p>\n

* Signifying perhaps a larger malaise in the sport, Texas Station<\/strong> closed its poker room recently. The El Cortez<\/strong> eliminated its room earlier this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Taking a veiled stab at Las Vegas Sands and Wynn Resorts, MGM Resorts International President William Hornbuckle said that a MGM megaresort in Japan would be\u00a0\u201cuniquely Japanese, not a copy of an integrated resort from Las Vegas or Singapore.\u201d It … 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":[65,51,4,140,96,171,93,11,25,55,108,57,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14504"}],"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=14504"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14506,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14504\/revisions\/14506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}