{"id":24758,"date":"2019-08-23T09:04:41","date_gmt":"2019-08-23T17:04:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=24758"},"modified":"2019-08-23T09:04:41","modified_gmt":"2019-08-23T17:04:41","slug":"case-bets-28","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/case-bets-28\/","title":{"rendered":"Case Bets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite the tepid attitude of Tokyo<\/strong> leadership, Las Vegas Sands<\/strong> has settled on it<\/a> and Yokohama<\/strong> as its destinations of preference in Japan<\/strong>. Which leaves Osaka<\/strong> out in the cold (although it is not lacking for suitors). Sands lost\u00a0no time in acting, announcing its desire for\u00a0Yokohama 30 minutes after the \"\"city started issued a request for proposals. Osaka still has plenty of interested parties, led by MGM Resorts International<\/strong>\/Orix<\/strong>\u2014remember, Japan wants to see a high level of Nipponese ownership in these casinos\u2014Wynn Resorts<\/strong>, Galaxy Entertainment<\/strong> and Melco Resorts & Entertainment<\/strong>. For reasons best known to himself, Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson<\/strong> didn’t like the prospective ROI in Osaka. As for getting the most bang for his buck,\u00a0\u201cWe think an investment in Tokyo or Yokohama gives us the best opportunity to do exactly that.\u201d<\/p>\n

* “Breastaurant chain” Hooters<\/strong> has been sold<\/a> for an undisclosed price. What impact, this will have on the eponymous hotel-casino in Las Vegas<\/strong> remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

* MGM likes its new NoMad<\/strong> hotel at Park MGM<\/strong> so much that it bought the company, snapping up a 50% stake<\/a> in Sydell Group<\/strong>. This will give the lion a hedge against its heavy exposure to the vicissitudes of the Las Vegas Strip<\/strong>. “Sydell, which is New York<\/strong>-based, has 16 hotels open or under construction in New York, Los Angeles<\/strong>\u00a0and London<\/strong>, among other cities,” reported Crain’s<\/em>. The MGM acquisition follows a trend of other giant hoteliers trying to get into the boutique-hotel game.<\/p>\n

As though MGM or the Las Vegas Convention Center<\/strong> needed any competition, along comes a trifle\u00a0called Exhibition City<\/strong>, which would sit on Las Vegas Boulevard<\/strong> a couple of blocks south<\/a> of the Beltway. Our colleague, Scott Roeben<\/strong>, who broke the story, says that it will have three components: Oasis City<\/strong>, Auto City<\/strong> and Expo City<\/strong>. These will further include an 18,000-seat arena (comparable to T-Mobile Arena<\/strong>), hotel and\u2014yes\u2014a casino. This thing has “vaporware” writ large upon it, not least because it is too far from anywhere people would walk except possible Raiders Stadium<\/strong>. Also, it is trying to be too many things to too many people. It looks like it will cost more, a lot more than the $2 billion that Roeben suggests. I’ll believe this thing when the shovels go into the ground.<\/p>\n

* Flexing its geopolitical muscles and meddling in the Philippines<\/strong>‘ internal affairs, China<\/strong> has announced that it wants the archipelago to cease Internet gambling<\/a>. Chinese spokesmen applauded Manila<\/strong>‘s embargo on new online casinos but said it didn’t go far enough.\u00a0\u201cOnline gambling is a most dangerous tumor in modern society detested by people all across the world,\u201d said Geng Shuang<\/strong>.\u00a0\u201cIt is a shared hope that this problem could be effectively dealt with.\u201d Shuang dangled the carrot<\/a> of “peace and stability” without mentioning what the stick would be.<\/p>\n

However, the Philippines has economic incentives not to cooperate, as a massive influx of Chinese expats has propelled new businesses, demand for housing and retail spending. Considering that Internet gambling has grown under strongman Rodrigo Duterte<\/strong>, his response to Beijing<\/strong> is impossible to predict.<\/p>\n

* If you were in Las Vegas between Aug. 1-6 and hung out in the vicinity of Luxor<\/strong>, there’s a danger you contracted measles. The coverage is so graphic that I’ll just direct you here<\/a>. Thanks for spoiling my lunch, Fox News<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

* Happy 25th birthday<\/a>, Boulder Station<\/strong>. It’s the property that marked both Station Casinos<\/strong>‘ transition to a publicly traded company and to one whose locals casinos had upscale aspirations. Let’s lift a $5 margarita (in celebration of Boulder Station’s increasing Latino audience) to its continued health. We’ll follow that up with the $25,000 bingo tournament. There’s nothing that says ‘Vegas’ quite like high-stakes bingo. We miss it.<\/p>\n

* KTNV-TV<\/strong> needs to roll out of bed a little sooner. The news about the Madison Square Garden<\/strong>\u00a0sphere isn’t that it costs more than a billion dollars<\/a>\u2014$1.2 billion was the starting figure. The news is the sticker shock that ensued when MSG announced Sheldon’s Sphere could run to $1.7 billion. As one S&G<\/em> reader observed, it’s difficult to see where MSG makes its return on investment at that price.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite the tepid attitude of Tokyo leadership, Las Vegas Sands has settled on it and Yokohama as its destinations of preference in Japan. Which leaves Osaka out in the cold (although it is not lacking for suitors). Sands lost\u00a0no time … 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":[88,268,201,153,22,37,171,241,222,245,192,12,57,9,233],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24758"}],"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=24758"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24761,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24758\/revisions\/24761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}