{"id":208,"date":"2009-10-02T21:23:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-03T01:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/blogs\/dmckee\/index.cfm\/2009\/10\/2\/Macaos-blockbuster-month"},"modified":"2022-09-03T07:01:32","modified_gmt":"2022-09-03T15:01:32","slug":"macaos-blockbuster-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/macaos-blockbuster-month\/","title":{"rendered":"Macao's blockbuster month"},"content":{"rendered":"

A flurry of good news to end the week, starting in Macao<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

September, the first month<\/strong> affected by a relaxation of severe visa restrictions imposed on the mainland, saw a 53% jump in Macanese gambling revenues. In terms of market share, Stanley Ho<\/strong> opened a big lead on Sheldon Adelson<\/strong>, 30% to 20%, with Melco Crown Entertainment<\/strong> close behind with 16%. The remainder of the market was divvied between Wynn Resorts<\/strong> (14%), MGM Mirage<\/strong> (10%) and Galaxy Entertainment<\/strong> (8%).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Is Melco’s City of Dreams<\/strong> (above<\/em>) eating into nearby Venetian Macao<\/strong>‘s business? On the surface, it certainly looks plausible. Given the immensity of the facilities he’s building on the Cotai Strip™<\/strong>, Adelson ought to be getting more bang for his pataca.<\/p>\n

Vegas hearts gays<\/strong>. Earlier today, I was asked to reflect on my nearly 11 years in Las Vegas. It’s been full of surprising twists of fate — who ever thought Steve Wynn<\/strong> would be forced out of the Mirage brand he’d created, just for starters?<\/p>\n

But I sure as heck never imagined I’d open my e-mail box at work and find the following casino promotions, all keyed to National Coming Out Day (Oct. 3):<\/p>\n

“Two Queens Beat a Straight<\/em>” (New York-New York<\/strong>)<\/p>\n

… or the slightly more innocuous …<\/p>\n

“COME OUT and Celebrate at Luxor<\/em>“<\/p>\n

(Luxor<\/strong> was smart and didn’t offer Criss F. Angel<\/strong> tickets as part of the, uh, package)<\/p>\n

In the Vegas of even a few years ago, “Boys’ Night Out Package at Excalibur<\/strong>” would have had more of a frat-party connotation. MGM Grand<\/strong> plays it safe with a “His or Her Getaway” which sounds like a generic singles-oriented deal. Even so, we’re actually seeing progress from the days when Vegas marketed itself as a synonym for a very debauched and jaundiced vision of male heterosexuality.<\/p>\n

There’s nothing like a depression to make this a party town of equal-opportunity decadence. After all, LGBT dollars spend just as fast as straight ones.<\/p>\n

$545 a night<\/strong>. That’s what Mandarin Oriental<\/strong> is asking. If you read the fine print, you’ll note that (through March 31), if you buy a room night at that rate, you’ll get a comped night, too. Which makes the effective rate $272 and change. By current standards, that’s still steep … but maybe staying in a 392-room hotel instead of a 4,000-room behemoth is an intangible added value. What do you think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A flurry of good news to end the week, starting in Macao: September, the first month affected by a relaxation of severe visa restrictions imposed on the mainland, saw a 53% jump in Macanese gambling revenues. In terms of market … 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":[56,28,14,4,96,94,62,53,93,11,12,61,32,9,19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208"}],"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=208"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31629,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions\/31629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}