{"id":15392,"date":"2015-01-23T14:06:11","date_gmt":"2015-01-23T22:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=15392"},"modified":"2020-09-09T06:43:04","modified_gmt":"2020-09-09T14:43:04","slug":"walker-finally-acts-pessimistic-about-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/walker-finally-acts-pessimistic-about-japan\/","title":{"rendered":"Walker finally acts; Pessimistic about Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"

After numerous delays, Wisconsin<\/strong> Gov. Scott Walker<\/strong> (R) finally was roused from inaction on the proposed Menominee Nation<\/strong> casino for Kenosha<\/strong>. The governor’s \"scott-walker1\"<\/a>response to the tribe was a firm “no,” predicated upon forecasts of revenue losses from the state’s other tribes, particularly the Potowatomi Tribe<\/strong> and Ho-Chunk Nation<\/strong>. Walker passed the blame to his predecessor, stating\u00a0“Due to the compacts negotiated by Governor [Jim<\/strong>] Doyle<\/strong>, the current cost to taxpayers of approving the proposed casino project is up to $100 million and the long-term economic hit to the state budget would be a potential loss of hundreds of millions of dollars.”<\/p>\n

The Potowatomi were quick to reward Walker for his decision, releasing $25 million revenue-sharing dollars that they’d impounded, pending the governor’s decision. In a late-Thursday desperation measure, the Menominee attempted to salvage their bid by proposing a $200 million-$250 million to cover revenue shortfalls from other tribes. Walker wasn’t going for it. An administration consultant’s report, released to the media, predicted the Menominee project would\u00a0“cannibalize more than $100 million in gross gaming revenue.”<\/p>\n

\"kenosha<\/a>“I don’t think that anyone could say that we didn’t act in good faith to try to get to a good point to this,” asserted Walker.\u00a0“But in the end, what it really boils down to is that there are more than a hundred million reasons why we had to make this decision and they all fall firmly on the lap of former Gov. Jim Doyle.”<\/p>\n

Menominee Nation\u00a0spokeswoman Laurie Poivin<\/strong> responded, “one tribe \u2014 the Forest County Potawatomi \u2014 and one goal of Governor Walker \u2014 the presidency \u2014 has led to a no for our people.” Hard Rock International<\/strong> also finds itself on the outside, looking in at $28.5 million a year in management fees it could have collected. As Secretary of Administration Mike Huebsch<\/strong> advised Walker,\u00a0“It is important to understand that a win-win-win scenario is not possible.” And with that, a particularly agonizing casino soap opera draws to a close.<\/p>\n

* Online poker is on the clock in California<\/strong> with the introduction of the\u00a0Internet Poker Consumer Protection Act of 2015<\/strong>. In return for a $10 million deposit and 8.5% tax payment, card rooms, racetracks and casinos could offer the game. However, counter-legislation is to be expected as the Protection Act lacks a “bad actor” clause<\/a>, a must-have for certain California tribes who want to keep PokerStars<\/strong> out of the state.<\/p>\n

* The window on 2020 casino openings in Japan has closed, according to a new Union Gaming Group<\/strong>, which also suggested that the pursuit of casino gambling had lost its \"japan_flag_01-300x300\"<\/a>way:\u00a0\u201cWe are less convinced that the opening of casinos in Tokyo<\/strong> and Osaka<\/strong> would be the right move out of the gate, as those markets do not fit the original reasoning behind the push to legalise casinos in Japan \u2013 to spur economic development by encouraging tourism in under-visited regions of Japan.\u201d<\/p>\n

The authors did offer a few hopeful caveats, such as the suggestion that the casino sites may have already been chosen. The authors also wrote,\u00a0\u201cThose active in the sector for a while will know that Japan seems like a market that is always about to happen but never does. With this in mind, one thing is absolute: casino legislation has never made it this far in Japan. Politically and economically, the setting is probably as good as it will ever get in Japan \u2013 a political environment that is notoriously unstable.\u201d You can say that again.<\/p>\n

The report was a bit skeptical<\/a> about Las Vegas Sands<\/strong>‘ “tenuous” chances if required to take on a local joint-venture partner. We all know that Sheldon Adelson<\/strong> does not play well with others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After numerous delays, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) finally was roused from inaction on the proposed Menominee Nation casino for Kenosha. The governor’s response to the tribe was a firm “no,” predicated upon forecasts of revenue losses from the state’s … 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":[34,22,171,178,33,12,31,20,170],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15392"}],"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=15392"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27928,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15392\/revisions\/27928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}