{"id":14671,"date":"2014-10-01T12:01:20","date_gmt":"2014-10-01T20:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=14671"},"modified":"2023-03-15T08:09:50","modified_gmt":"2023-03-15T16:09:50","slug":"wynn-think-big-genting-spend-big","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wynn-think-big-genting-spend-big\/","title":{"rendered":"Wynn: Think big; Genting: Spend big"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Steve Wynn<\/strong> opened The Mirage<\/strong> in 1989, it was the beginning of the end of the era when the casino was the dominant revenue source in Las \"steve-wynn\"<\/a>Vegas<\/strong> resorts. Restaurants, shows and hotel rooms all became profit centers. But he also started identifying his properties with free, iconic attractions<\/a>.\u00a0“We started putting things in front of the building that didn’t have a cash register in front of them,” he told an audience at Global Gaming Expo<\/strong> yesterday. Of Vegas’ mystique, he said,\u00a0“It was never the slot machines.\u00a0The machines has no power unto itself\u00a0…\u00a0It’s about things that give people a chance to live big.” Wynn’s taken that vision successfully from Macao<\/strong> to Boston<\/strong>. (But not Atlantic City<\/strong>, a metropolis that staunchly resists becoming a destination.)<\/p>\n

Putting it in rather graphic terms, Wynn said,\u00a0\u201cYou\u2019ve got to give people something they\u2019re willing to get on an airplane and submit to a body search for.\u201d (Squirmy but true.) In the case of his Everett<\/strong>, Massachusetts<\/strong>, project he’s talking about things like a 60-foot atrium, curved escalators — if it’s feasible, Wynn will do it — glass elevators … and that’s just the entryway<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wynn may have ruffled a few feathers among i-gaming attendees at the conference. He said Internet<\/strong> gambling doesn’t impress him, giving it the back of his hand. Oh well, more for everyone else. And Steve Wynn’s probably never lost a night’s sleep over being impolitic. Why else would the gaming industry hang upon his every utterance?<\/p>\n

* Money talks. That’s the conclusion of Malaysian Maybank Investment Bank<\/strong>, which pegs Genting Group<\/strong>‘s Orange County<\/strong> casino proposal as a shoe-in to get a New York State<\/strong> license. Genting “is offering the highest amount of investment into the project, highest amount of licensing fees and\/or tax rates and highest number of jobs and salaries,\u201d wrote Maybank analysts<\/a>, adding somewhat unfairly,\u00a0\u201cNone of the competing applicants have a track record that is even close to Genting Malaysia<\/strong>.\u201d (Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> would rightly disagree although Maybank dismissed its $880 million Orange County proposal as “a distant second.”)<\/p>\n

Genting is hedging its bets by competing against itself with rival projects in Tuxedo<\/strong> ($1.5 billion Sterling Forest Resort<\/strong>) and $1 billion Resorts World Hudson Valley<\/strong>, in Montgomery<\/strong>. Genting has spent $2.5 million lobbying for the two proposals, so if it loses it won’t for an absence of largesse.<\/p>\n

* If you hadn’t played the Lion’s Share<\/strong> slot machine, a relic of the MGM Grand<\/strong>‘s opening (below<\/em>), you’re too late. After a good, 20 year run and having disgorged its $2.4 million jackpot, it’s being \"MGM-R_jpg_445x1000_upscale_q85\"<\/a>retired to the Florida<\/strong> winter residence of winners Walter and Linda Misco<\/strong>. At 21 years of age, the one-armed bandit was too young to be sent to the Miscos’ New Hampshire<\/strong> home but it was just old enough to qualify for Florida residency. All good things end and Lion’s Share went out in a blaze of glory. But there will always be a reason to visit MGM Grand as long as one can play Sigma Derby<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

MGM Resorts International<\/strong> itself, however, is thinking of other, bigger things — like investing in fantasy sports leagues. Imagine the revenue MGM could capture in this demimonde. To make his point, CEO Jim Murren<\/strong> noted that his wife, a sports novice, joined a fantasy football league this season. The prospect of an MGM or Caesars owning a substantial chunk of fantasy-league action makes traditional casino revenue look like nickels and dimes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Steve Wynn opened The Mirage in 1989, it was the beginning of the end of the era when the casino was the dominant revenue source in Las Vegas resorts. Restaurants, shows and hotel rooms all became profit centers. But … 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":[23,4,36,104,120,7,140,62,112,11,163,101,32,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14671"}],"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=14671"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32469,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14671\/revisions\/32469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}