{"id":18698,"date":"2016-08-12T11:40:07","date_gmt":"2016-08-12T19:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=18698"},"modified":"2016-08-12T11:40:07","modified_gmt":"2016-08-12T19:40:07","slug":"cold-comfort-for-wynn-nebraska-racino-initiative-crashes-and-burns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/cold-comfort-for-wynn-nebraska-racino-initiative-crashes-and-burns\/","title":{"rendered":"Cold comfort for Wynn; Nebraska racino initiative crashes and burns"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Wynn Resorts<\/strong> predicted in its last earnings call, it will get more table games from the Macao<\/strong> government after Wynn Palace<\/strong> opens … 50 tables, phased in over two years<\/a>. That’s \"Wynna pretty mingy allocation but is in line with\u00a0Secretary for Economy &\u00a0Finance Lionel Leong<\/strong>‘s goal of 3% table-game growth. Wynn said it was “satisfied” with the grant, as though it had any choice but to roll with the punches. The megaresort was designed with 400 tables in mind and Steve Wynn<\/strong> is camouflaging the shortfall by importing 250 tables from Wynn Macau<\/strong>. The Macanese government seems to be having a jolly good time making an example of Wynn (the CEO, not the company) after he blew his stack over governmental micromanagement of the casino industry, views that probably shouldn’t have been shared on an international conference call. We’ve come a full 180 degrees from the days when Wynn said his eponymous firm was “essentially a Chinese company” and threatened to move corporate headquarters to the People’s Republic of China<\/strong>. (Las Vegans practically lined up to help him move.)<\/p>\n

The news was little help to Wynn Macau stock, which has badly lagged the parent company in its performance. As Union Gaming Group<\/strong> analyst Grant Govertsen<\/strong> wrote, an outlay of 150 tables\u00a0\u201cdoes raise concerns on how an operator can ultimately get to where they need to be on a longer-term basis with only 150 tables on a more than $4 billion investment.\u201d It’s worth remembering that the current wave of Macanese megaresorts was conceived when VIP gambling was at full flood, with no thought of a government crackdown, much less a mandate to diversify the economy away from gaming. According to Bloomberg News<\/em>, Parisian<\/strong> and MGM Cotai<\/strong> haven’t received their table quotas yet, but Sheldon Adelson<\/strong> and Jim Murren<\/strong> had probably better start loading up the trucks to move tables to the Cotai Strip<\/strong> from downtown.<\/p>\n

* Speaking of Steve Wynn, he can give thanks he’s been banned from the Philippines<\/strong>, which continues to be a snakepit of corruption, just as he said. Rizal Commercial Banking Corp<\/strong>. has been hit with a $21 million fine<\/a> for its role in a heist of $81 million in Bangladesh<\/strong> funds from the Federal Reserve<\/strong>, money that was laundered through Philippine casinos. The Bangladeshi government has pronounced itself somewhat mollified by the outcome (“Our quest remains the $81 million and we hold RCBC responsible”), but the scandal highlights the opportunity for abuse created when Filipino lawmakers exempted casinos from anti-money-laundering regulations. The U.S. casino industry still has some work to do in the AML field, as a couple of high-profile investigations indicate, but it’s streets ahead of the Philippines.<\/p>\n

* Although the Golden Gate<\/strong> has start accepting Bitcoin<\/strong>, other Vegas casinos aren’t rushing to emulate it and perhaps with good reason. Australia<\/strong> is considering tighter regulation<\/a> of Bitcoin both as a potential money-laundering vehicle and as a means for financing terrorism. When a money-movement system is described as “anonymous and secure,” regulatory red flags should be flown at full mast.<\/p>\n

* Scratch one more potential referendum from the November ballot. A proposal to convert six Nebraska<\/strong> tracks to racinos came up far short of qualifying for a vote. Some signatures didn’t belong to registered voters, others were duplicates but a crippling 24,000-plus signatures didn’t jibe with the county where the signatory was registered to vote<\/a>. This was obviously a really sloppy effort and economic setback to the Cornhusker State — although I’m sure Iowa<\/strong> casinos are celebrating the news.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Wynn Resorts predicted in its last earnings call, it will get more table games from the Macao government after Wynn Palace opens … 50 tables, phased in over two years. That’s a pretty mingy allocation but is in line … 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":[103,51,26,189,62,11,156,192,111,25,12,32,8,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18698"}],"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=18698"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18699,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18698\/revisions\/18699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}