{"id":5571,"date":"2011-01-12T11:41:26","date_gmt":"2011-01-12T19:41:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=5571"},"modified":"2011-01-12T16:30:53","modified_gmt":"2011-01-13T00:30:53","slug":"saved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/saved\/","title":{"rendered":"Saved!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Illinois<\/strong>‘ casino industry just dodged a bullet the size of a 747 when the lower house failed to bring a gaming-expansion bill to a vote last night. A new Legislature is sworn in today, sending this colossally bad and ill-timed idea back from whence it came<\/a>. As Wells Fargo<\/strong> analyst Carlo Santarelli<\/strong> added, when reporting the news, “we firmly believe the bill was ill conceived from the start.” Preach it, Brother Santarelli!<\/p>\n

\"\"“Macau-see, Macau-do.”<\/strong> That’s how reporter Muhammad Cohen<\/strong> characterizes the imitative nature of casino development in Macao<\/strong>. So long as China<\/strong>‘s GDP continues to grow at an 8%+ rate, Macanese casino business appears sustainable. That’s good because the much-mooted economic diversification hasn’t evolved<\/a> beyond “empty talk., ” according to Cohen, who says the enclave’s manufacturing sector is in a state of collapse. Thanks to the steep casino tax, the Macanese government is sitting upon a huge budget surplus but apparently has little notion of what to except rebate it to citizens and guest-workers alike, in the form of cash grants. Although a second Cirque du Soleil<\/strong> spectacular has been quietly scrapped following the box office struggles of Zaia<\/em>, other media reports indicate that Franco Dragone<\/strong>‘s $250 million House of Dancing Water<\/em> at City of Dreams<\/strong> is breaking even and is expected to go into the black this year. And it’s not as though Macao doesn’t have alluring tourist attractions<\/a>, albeit ones of a subtler and smaller nature than we associate with “casino-based destination resorts,” to dust off an old Steve Wynn<\/strong> coinage.<\/p>\n

True Vegas story<\/strong>: A New Year’s Eve reveler fell off Planet Hollywood<\/strong> in the wee hours of Jan. 1 and his body wasn’t found until two days later<\/em>, when an employee looked out a window only to behold a corpse. Time for Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> to circle the legal wagons, since a lawsuit is coming, sure as shootin’.<\/p>\n

Sheldon Adelson won’t be writing<\/strong> campaign checks to Nevada<\/strong> Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) anytime soon. Seems that when he was a federal judge, Sandoval booted the ball in a dispute<\/a> over a $499,000 gambling debt, excluding evidence that would potentially have forced Las Vegas Sands<\/strong> to go to trial. It still might, as the case has been kicked back down the federal circuit for rehearing. Amine Nehme<\/strong> is clearly a man with a problem, one who needs to take some responsibility here. But, to quote my favorite line from Thelma & Louise<\/em>, “The law is some tricky shit,” and Sands’ knowledge of Nehme’s attempted self-exclusion could leave the company on sandy legal footing. Fortunately for Adelson, Nevada is more lenient in these matters than, say, New Jersey<\/strong>. If this happened in the Garden State, Sands would be out the half-million clams plus<\/em> a whopping fine on top of it.<\/p>\n

\"\"Both Sands and archrival Wynn Resorts<\/strong> were busy laying a charm offensive on Florida<\/strong> lawmakers this week. The latter are fast-tracking legislation that would carve out four or five casino zones in the state<\/a>. The protected-monopoly aspects of the proposed bill are ripe for favoritism when it comes to ruling which company gets which market, as has happened in Pennsylvania<\/strong>. (It’s one, somewhat defensible thing, in my opinion, to assign casino licenses to Cities X, Y & Z, quite another to actively prohibit competition.) Given what we’ve seen of the Sunshine State market, the notion of starting with a $3 billion resort — and would it really<\/em> take four-five years to build? — seems incautious. However, while Adelson’s and Wynn’s shareholders might balk at so large a gamble, that size of investment and the construction jobs that come with it are music to Floridians’ ears.<\/p>\n

It’s not a slam-dunk. Much of Florida, especially up north, is hostile territory where casinos are concerned. More to the point, parimutuel operators who took the long, hard route to private-sector gambling and understandably riled that Adelson and Wynn might enjoy the benefit of a legislative shortcut. The same expedient route was proposed for dockside gambling a few years back and it didn’t go over well. However, now that the U.S. Senate has hiked — and fumbled — the legalization of online poker, add Florida to the list of potential intra-state cyber-poker jurisdictions. Budget problems being what they are, I put the “under” at four state legislatures debating it during the new biennium, to say nothing of tribes who might call Uncle Sam’s bluff on the issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Illinois‘ casino industry just dodged a bullet the size of a 747 when the lower house failed to bring a gaming-expansion bill to a vote last night. A new Legislature is sworn in today, sending this colossally bad and ill-timed … 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":[80,28,14,4,36,7,58,37,62,93,95,33,90,111,25,12,32,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5571"}],"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=5571"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5586,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5571\/revisions\/5586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}