{"id":23810,"date":"2019-03-28T09:20:09","date_gmt":"2019-03-28T17:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=23810"},"modified":"2019-03-28T09:20:09","modified_gmt":"2019-03-28T17:20:09","slug":"baccarat-undercuts-the-strip-japan-shows-its-hand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/baccarat-undercuts-the-strip-japan-shows-its-hand\/","title":{"rendered":"Baccarat undercuts the Strip; Japan shows its hand"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is our trade war with China<\/strong> inflicting collateral damage on the Las Vegas Strip<\/strong>? That’s one theory for anemic Chinese New Year<\/strong> visitation that led to a 2% downturn in gaming receipts last month. By contrast, \"\"last year saw an 11.5% increase. Slot winnings were actually good ($268 million), up 4.5%, while non-baccarat table win jumped 14%. But baccarat was a triage unit, down 26% on 18.5% less wagering, making the house doubly unlucky. Strip casinos grossed $592 million overall. Downtown<\/strong> jumped 9% to $58 million, the Boulder Strip<\/strong> grossed $65 million (+2.5%), North Las Vegas<\/strong> grossed $24 million, up 5%, and miscellaneous Clark County<\/strong> jurisdictions like Mesquite<\/strong> and Summerlin<\/strong> pulled in an aggregate $97 million, an 8.5%. In other words, the picture was unquestionably healthy among locals gamblers and mostly so amidst the tourists.<\/p>\n

Laughlin<\/strong> ($45 million, flat) actually surpassed Reno<\/strong> ($44 million, -8%) and terrible numbers from Lake Tahoe<\/strong> ($14.5 million, -26.5%) suggest that weather played an adverse role on the northern climes. Wendover<\/strong>, best barometer of the Nevada<\/strong> gaming market, was down 1.5%. The drive-in customers evidently weren’t feeling the love.<\/p>\n

*\u00a0Regulations casinos in Japan<\/strong> have been promulgated and they’re pretty stringent. For starters, the casino floor can occupy no more that 3%<\/a> of the total resort square footage, so operators will be hard-pressed \"\"to make their investment pencil out from that particular profit center. Advertising will only be permitted in cruise-ship and airport terminals. Developers will have to build three hotels, at least one of them being at least 100,000 square feet worth of guest rooms. Cash transactions of $9,000 or larger will have to be reported to the government. There will be no ATMs on the gaming floor. Patrons’ faces will be biometrically checked against self-exclusion lists.<\/p>\n

Osaka<\/strong> is said to have the inside track for one of the three megaresorts. MGM Resorts International<\/strong> wants it and, to that end, has hired former Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval<\/strong> to sweet-talk Shinzo Abe<\/strong>‘s regime. Next up will be requests for proposals, so the fun is just beginning.<\/p>\n

* Wait ’til Donald Trump<\/strong> reads about this: The government of the Philippines<\/strong> is fast-tracking legislation that raise infrastructure funding by heavily taxing foreign online casino workers, a major growth industry in the archipelago. The Department of Finance<\/strong> looks to raise $418 million<\/a> through the initiative, which is aimed at stopping tax as evasion. As Secretary of Finance Carlos Dominguez<\/strong> says, “being fair to all Filipinos who are paying their taxes” is the goal. “We have to go after these guys because they are not paying taxes. Simple.”<\/p>\n

The massive influx of workers, mainly from China<\/strong>, has coincided with the rise of the Rodrigo Duterte<\/strong> administration, a situation exacerbated by illegal immigration. According to Nikkei Asian Review<\/em>, an online-casino worker bee earns $1,480\/month, which is subject to a 25% income tax. Ouch. I know one place where I don’t want to try to earn a living.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is our trade war with China inflicting collateral damage on the Las Vegas Strip? That’s one theory for anemic Chinese New Year visitation that led to a 2% downturn in gaming receipts last month. By contrast, last year saw an … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[88,51,14,37,171,76,49,126,245,207,78,192,90,25,79,31,9,247],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23810"}],"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=23810"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23811,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23810\/revisions\/23811"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}