{"id":17934,"date":"2016-03-15T11:37:55","date_gmt":"2016-03-15T19:37:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=17934"},"modified":"2016-03-15T11:37:55","modified_gmt":"2016-03-15T19:37:55","slug":"adelson-sets-the-pace-philippine-gaming-scandal-grows-legs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/adelson-sets-the-pace-philippine-gaming-scandal-grows-legs\/","title":{"rendered":"Adelson sets the pace; Philippine gaming scandal grows legs"},"content":{"rendered":"

As March gets off to a week start in Macao<\/strong>, operators who don’t yet have a presence on the giant landfill known as Cotai<\/strong> — namely Wynn Resorts<\/strong>, MGM Resorts International<\/strong> and \"Sands-Cotai-Central\"Sociedade de Jogos de Macau<\/strong> — are being encouraged to increase their mass-market orientation<\/a>. “As business migrates to Cotai with new properties continuing to open, casino operators with peninsula-concentrated product portfolios …\u00a0may continue to lose market share over the medium and long-term,\u201d wrote Sanford C. Bernstein<\/strong> analysts\u00a0Vitaly Umansky<\/strong> and Simon Zhang<\/strong>. In the meantime, Sheldon Adelson<\/strong> is cleaning up.\u00a0\u201cThe lion\u2019s share of Sands China<\/strong>\u2019s profit comes from its mass-market casino tables and non-gaming businesses, and the mix continues to shift more in this direction,\u201d wrote Bloomberg Intelligence<\/strong> senior analyst Tim Craighead<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Noting that mass-market gamblers generated 75% of the gambling profit at the tables last quarter, Craighead added,\u00a0\u201cThese segments generated about 80 percent of last year\u2019s [Sands] operating profit. In contrast, the low-margin VIP business accounted for a relatively miniscule 10 percent, even though it typically garners news headlines.\u201d Adding its voice to the chorus, Morgan Stanley Asia<\/strong> opined that mass-market players were a much better return-on-investment proposition. They were also a fecund source of revenue for shopping malls, a historic strong point for Sands:\u00a0It also has bigger retail business, which is less staff intensive and carries higher margin.\u201d Once again, the casino industry finds itself following Adelson’s lead.<\/p>\n

* Penn National Gaming<\/strong>‘s Plainridge Park<\/strong> racino in Massachusetts<\/strong> surpassed Deutsche Bank<\/strong> analyst Carlo Santarelli<\/strong>‘s estimates, up 1% from last month. Penn averaged $350 slot\/win\/day on 4% higher coin-in. Plainridge grossed $13 million for the month.<\/p>\n

* Philippine Amusement & Gaming Corp<\/strong>. CEO Cristino Naguiat<\/strong> has got some ‘splainin’ to do to the Philippines Senate. He’s been called to testify<\/a> as to how $81 million stolen from the government of Bangladesh<\/strong> found its way into Philippine casinos. Pagcor, \"Solaire\"after all, was one of the parties which successfully lobbied to have casinos — which it both owns and regulates — excluded from 2001 anti-money-laundering legislation. Also being called on the carpet were Solaire Resort<\/strong> CEO Thomas Arasi<\/strong>, Midas Hotel & Casino<\/strong> CEO Reynaldo Bantung<\/strong> and City of Dreams Manila<\/strong> President\u00a0Clarence Chung<\/strong>. Additional revelations on the money-laundering scandal were promised to the Wall Street Journal<\/em> by\u00a0Anti-Money Laundering Council<\/strong> Chairman Amando Tetangco<\/strong>.\u00a0\u201cThere is a clear violation of our anti-money-laundering law,\u201d he told the paper.\u00a0A Pagcor official leaked to the\u00a0Philippine Daily Inquirer<\/em> the contention that only $46 million was laundered<\/a>, mostly at Solaire. Midas and City of Dreams were held to be in the clear. As Filipino officials attempt to get to the bottom of this murk, the picture only gets cloudier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As March gets off to a week start in Macao, operators who don’t yet have a presence on the giant landfill known as Cotai — namely Wynn Resorts, MGM Resorts International and Sociedade de Jogos de Macau — are being … 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":[189,62,53,112,93,11,69,192,25,12,61,32,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17934"}],"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=17934"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17935,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17934\/revisions\/17935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}