{"id":21916,"date":"2018-06-19T09:21:53","date_gmt":"2018-06-19T17:21:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=21916"},"modified":"2018-09-18T11:31:30","modified_gmt":"2018-09-18T19:31:30","slug":"overexposed-in-macao-hard-rock-firing-on-all-cylinders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/overexposed-in-macao-hard-rock-firing-on-all-cylinders\/","title":{"rendered":"Overexposed in Macao; Hard Rock firing on all cylinders"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you’re a Wynn Resorts<\/strong> shareholder and you’re following rising trade tensions with China<\/strong>, you’ve a right to be nervous<\/a>. Wynn derives 69% of its revenue from Macao<\/strong>, giving a certain truth to Steve Wynn<\/strong>‘s old \"\"quote that “We’re really a Chinese company.” Las Vegas Sands<\/strong> is not far behind, at 65%, making them the most- and third-most exposed U.S. companies\u00a0of $3 billion. (Qualcomm<\/strong> occupies the unenviable niche in between.) MGM Resorts International<\/strong> doesn’t even come close. That will be good news for CEO Jim Murren<\/strong> when a new wave of Chinese tariffs hits on July 6. On the other hand, an ornery Chinese government may not feel like postponing concession renewal until 2022, as MGM Grand Paradise<\/strong> CEO Grant Bowie<\/strong> has been trying to do, negotiating through Sinophile media outlets.<\/p>\n

Two years is a long time, especially with the mercurial Trump administration in power over here. There’s no telling what the state of U.S.\/China relations will be, especially if Donald Trump<\/strong> is running for reelection and trying to pump up the economy. However, that 2020 deadline has got to be uncomfortably close for MGM, especially in terms of recouping its investment in MGM Cotai<\/strong>. Nationalization would be an extreme step but we don’t put it past Beijing<\/strong> to make an example of somebody, even an anti-Trump company like MGM. Sociedade de Jogos de Macau<\/strong> is making snail’s-pace progress to beat the 2020 guillotine with its Cotai Strip<\/strong> megaresort, and if anybody is guilty of overpromising and underdelivering it’s SJM. But would the government revoke the hometown favorite’s concession just to make a point?<\/p>\n

In other MGM news, it has lured Wolfgang Puck<\/strong>, the Ronald McDonald<\/strong> of fine dining, away from Caesars Palace<\/strong> and over to Bellagio<\/strong>. (Yeah, the actual divorce\/remarriage was consummated last winter.) Congratulation are in order, I suppose. Inaugurated by Jennifer Lopez<\/strong>, the new Puck eatery features — among other delicacies<\/a> — prawns that are raised on-property. Is that a Las Vegas<\/strong> first?<\/p>\n

*\u00a0By now we’ve all heard about the guitar-shaped hotel tower rising at Hard Rock Casino Hollywood<\/strong> in Florida<\/strong>, but it’s ‘only’ part of a wider reimagination<\/a> by the Seminole Tribe<\/strong> of their Hard Rock-\"\"branded resorts. Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tampa<\/strong> is tripling its pool deck, had added a spa and created a no-smoking gaming area, and is increasing its hotel-room count from 236 to 800. In addition to the attention-getting hotel tower, the Hollywood<\/strong> property will double the size of its casino floor, for a total of 3,000\u00a0slots. Convention space is also on the agenda, as is a 41,000-square-foot spa and 7,o00-seat concert hall. It’s also promising a “Bora Bora<\/strong> Experience” that includes private pools with butler service.<\/p>\n

We can skip over kid-friendly Hard Rock Hotel Universal Orlando<\/strong> and 200-room Hard Rock Hotel Daytona Beach<\/strong>. However it’s becoming clear, as is the case with Hard Rock Atlantic City<\/strong>, that the Seminoles are fast beating Las Vegas at its own game. May the best company win.<\/p>\n

* Say what you like about Lawrence Ho<\/strong>, he’s got a gluttonous appetite for risk. He’s still committed to spending in excess of $10 billion (more than anyone else) on a Japan<\/strong> megaresort and says he’s down with all the regulatory requirements, including confining the \"\"gambling floor to only 3% of the total resort. He says Nippon is \u201cstill a priceless opportunity,\u201d even if locals are restricted to three visits a week and no more than 10 a month. “It\u2019s unfortunate that a lot of the general population in Japan think of IR as associated with pachinko and pachislot,” Ho said. “People coming to an\u00a0[integrated resort] are not just coming here to gamble, there\u2019s so much more to do.\u201d His comments come against the ominous backdrop of unrest in the Diet<\/strong>. Opposition parties are pushing to dismiss a key lawmaker, which means we could kiss a summer implementation vote goodbye.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you’re a Wynn Resorts shareholder and you’re following rising trade tensions with China, you’ve a right to be nervous. Wynn derives 69% of its revenue from Macao, giving a certain truth to Steve Wynn‘s old quote that “We’re really … 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":[65,23,18,42,14,36,165,7,171,94,62,11,33,25,200,12,213,32,9,233],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21916"}],"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=21916"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22474,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21916\/revisions\/22474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}