{"id":7471,"date":"2011-09-12T11:11:15","date_gmt":"2011-09-12T19:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=7471"},"modified":"2011-09-12T12:26:14","modified_gmt":"2011-09-12T20:26:14","slug":"how-to-get-things-done-in-macao-bribery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/how-to-get-things-done-in-macao-bribery\/","title":{"rendered":"How to get things done in Macao? Bribery!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"OK, so it’s called “paying a premium,” but Steve Wynn<\/strong> finally pried 51 acres of Cotai Strip\u2122<\/strong> landfill<\/span> real estate loose from Macao<\/strong> by forking over $193 million<\/a> ($3.8 million an acre), plus annual lease payments. In return. he’s got to get $2.5 billion, 1,400-room Wynn Cotai<\/strong> up and running by 2016. Since Wynn has to queue up behind everybody else who’s got a project in progress, when it comes to getting a share of Macao’s limited labor pool, he’s somewhat the mercy of how quickly or slowly (*cough<\/em>*Sands China<\/strong>*coug<\/em>h*) can complete their erections. However, the Macanese administration leapfrogged his project past ones bankrolled by homeboys Melco Crown Entertainment and sluggish Sociedade de Jogos de Macau<\/strong>, so El Steve’s $193 million was well spent.<\/p>\n

J.P. Morgan<\/strong> analyst Joseph Greff<\/strong> predicts similar approvals soon for Sands and long-suffering MGM Resorts International<\/strong>. One can’t fault the government’s logic. It knows it has casino developers over a barrel, saw a chance to make a lot of money on the quick and took it.<\/p>\n

What Wynn couldn’t<\/strong> do and Sheldon Adelson\u2122<\/strong> failed to accomplish in Florida may have been achieved by Genting Berhad<\/strong>. So argues state Rep. Erik Fresen<\/strong> (R). He’s planning to introduce a still-further-scaled-down version of casino legalization<\/a> over the next fortnight. With Genting, already a significant force in the South Florida economy, having recently invested $236 million in Miami<\/strong> real estate and with gambling springing up at Internet<\/strong> caf\u00e9s across the Sunshine State, even erstwhile casino opponents are seeing the light.<\/p>\n

\"\"Among the proposal’s reductions in scope, it would now call for three casinos — not five or six — and bunch them all at the south end of the state. (Projected investment has been downsized to a more realistic $5 billion-$6 billion.) Miami-Dade<\/strong> and Broward<\/strong> counties, having already approved slot machines at parimutuels, are the likely winners. Other counties that want in on the fun will have to submit the issue to a local vote. Opponents are expected to include: A)<\/strong> parimutuels, already fighting each other in earnest<\/a>, who foresee themselves being wiped out by Vegas carpetbaggers; B)<\/strong> the Seminole Tribe<\/strong>, who compact with the state is cheerfully being trampled underfoot; C)<\/strong> legislators who don’t want to gamble away $250 million in annual Seminole taxes against an unknown amount of private-sector revenue; D)<\/strong> and Las Vegas Sands<\/strong>, which still clings to its silly exclusivity-zone concept (henceforth known as the “Line of Death”). Religious zealots will wring their hands, no doubt, but the bill is crafted in such a manner as to keep gambling far from their upstate precincts — and distant from those parts of Florida that are beholden to Disneyworld<\/strong> and its offshoots.<\/p>\n

\"\"Since Florida solons now look to the Las Vegas Strip<\/strong> for campaign dollars, the industry’s influence is on the rise. As for the dog track, fronton and racino owners … one of the GOP selling points for the bill is that it will<\/em> drive them out of business and that it’s a good thing. In other words, the only way to get rid of small casinos is to authorize some big casinos. “A net reduction in gaming” is what it’s called.<\/p>\n

Speaking of which<\/strong> … let’s have a moment of silence for casinos in Ecuador<\/strong>. They’ll have to shut down by mid-March, due to an anti-casino backlash<\/a> at the ballot box. North American companies are traditionally skittish toward the South American market and this latest setback is a good example of why that is the case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OK, so it’s called “paying a premium,” but Steve Wynn finally pried 51 acres of Cotai Strip\u2122 landfill real estate loose from Macao by forking over $193 million ($3.8 million an acre), plus annual lease payments. In return. he’s got … 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":[28,26,36,120,22,37,96,94,62,93,11,33,111,25,12,61,32,20,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7471"}],"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=7471"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7477,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7471\/revisions\/7477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}