{"id":17967,"date":"2016-03-22T12:33:22","date_gmt":"2016-03-22T20:33:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=17967"},"modified":"2018-08-20T09:26:33","modified_gmt":"2018-08-20T17:26:33","slug":"adelsons-10-billion-bet-pokerstars-comes-to-atlantic-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/adelsons-10-billion-bet-pokerstars-comes-to-atlantic-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Adelson’s $10 billion bet; PokerStars comes to Atlantic City"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sheldon Adelson<\/strong> is desperate to get into South Korea<\/strong>. He doesn’t need to articulate it: Las Vegas Sands<\/strong>‘ actions say as much. The company has vowed to do “whatever it takes” to penetrate \"Sheldonthe market. “Anything” includes raising the prospective investment from $2.4 billion to at least $10 billion. That’s almost double what Adelson spent building Marina Bay Sands<\/strong> in Singapore<\/strong>, a country with fewer restrictions on who can gamble and where. He’d also face more competitors in the megaresort market, whereas in Singapore he has only the (largely vanquished) Resorts World Sentosa<\/strong> to worry about. Marina Bay Sands CEO George Tanasijevich<\/strong> said the proposed investment could push past the $10 billion mark depending on\u00a0\u201chow many buildings we are allowed to build and how many locations we are allowed to build in.\u201d He also identified South Korea as Sands’ number-one priority, meaning that Adelson has temporarily despaired — haven’t we all? — of any imminent breakthrough in Japan<\/strong>. The huge financial commitment Adelson is promising the Koreans represents the biggest gamble of his career, especially since South Korean nationals are barred from all but one of the country’s casino resorts, a situation that will not change until sometime in the next decade. So Adelson is either suicidal or crazy like the fox. His track record would seem to indicate the latter.<\/p>\n

* China<\/strong>‘s government has promised help to Macao<\/strong>‘s casinos and delivered bupkes<\/em> to date. However, when discussing the enclave’s gaming woes, it’s easy to forget that only 49 Chinese cities enjoy permission for their citizens to visit Macao. That leaves 80% of the Chinese market untapped<\/a>. (Would Americans ever tolerate such restriction on their \"HotelLisboa\"movements?) The Beijing<\/strong> government has talked vaguely of “optimisation and adjustment\u201d of the Individual Visa Scheme<\/strong>. Brokerage Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd<\/strong>. endorses widening the IVS and increasing its frequency as a quick fix to Macao’s malaise. (The government also called for making Macao a \u201cworld centre of tourism and leisure,\u201d which implies a de-emphasis on gambling as a tourist attraction.) IVS-enabled tourists are desirable, in the words of GGRAsia<\/em>, “because the spending power of IVS visitors to Macau is thought generally to be higher than that of mainland Chinese visitors arriving on package tours.” They are also believed to gamble more.<\/p>\n

The inaction in Beijing has not passed the notice of Stern Agee<\/strong> CRT analyst David Bain<\/strong>, who wrote, \u201cWe believe investors may be overly enthusiastic about recent mainland \"MGMpolicy statements in support of Macau.\u201d His counterparts at Telsey Advisory Group<\/strong> projected an 18% revenue decline for Macanese casinos this year but added, \u201cOur discussions with company management teams suggest that there is some actual improvement in mass play, which is a positive dynamic, given the higher profitability of mass versus VIP and the need for mass market growth to support new Cotai<\/strong> projects in the future.\u201d Said a quartet of Nomura<\/strong> analysts, “the mass gaming segment \u2026 has been slowing of late, which supports our view that Macau is about to see a moderate recovery but not a \u2018V-shape\u2019 rebound.\u201d In other words, patience remains the watchword where Macao is concerned.<\/p>\n

* PokerStars<\/strong>‘ operation of poker and casino games in New Jersey is officially a ‘go’<\/a> after a soft opening. Considering that PokerStars represents 70% of the global market for online poker, this could be a real (pardon the pun) game changer for host Resorts Atlantic City<\/strong>. In addition to its namesake game, PokerStars will be offering cyber versions of slots, blackjack, baccarat and roulette. \u201cWorking with our partner, Resorts Casino Hotel, we look forward to providing the most exciting, innovative and secure gaming experience to New Jersey<\/strong>,\u201d said Daniel Baazov<\/strong>, CEO of Amaya<\/strong>, PokerStars’ parent company.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sheldon Adelson is desperate to get into South Korea. He doesn’t need to articulate it: Las Vegas Sands‘ actions say as much. The company has vowed to do “whatever it takes” to penetrate the market. “Anything” includes raising the prospective … 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":[23,14,120,37,171,62,167,178,25,12,108,187,19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17967"}],"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=17967"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22292,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17967\/revisions\/22292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}