This compare-and-contrast montage of MGM Grand Macau, Wynn Macau and Sociedade de Jogos de Macau’s Grand Lisboa provides a mini-education. At first blush, the MGM property looks a mite too fancy for its own good, though it compares favorably to many of the company’s Strip properties. (You have to wonder how it would be performing if MGM and partner Pansy Ho had spent less and gotten their product to market sooner.) If you’ve been to Encore, then Wynn’s Macao property will give you a distinct (more…)
Mike Ensign’s 96 dimes of hush money to his son’s mistress’ pimp daddy (akaDoug Hampton) and “Casino Jack” Abramoff make cameo appearances in this attack ad (found via @RalstonFlash). Throw in the heavy-handed meddling in casino affairs of Gov. Chet Culver (D-IA) and Gov. David Paterson (D-N.Y.), and it’s been (more…)
Pay no attention to the over-budget, behind-schedule megaresort in the background.
Six casinos at $2 billion apiece. No joking, that’s what a Sheldon Adelson flunky is proposing in Florida. (I guess the white-out of Atlantic City isn’t the only snow job on the East Coast.) Oh, and a 10% tax rate … far less than what existing operators are paying.
Legislators, dazzled by state-generated projections of as much as $2.3 billion in licensing fees, are apparently eating this all up. Imagine the black laughter Adelson spokesman Andy Abboud would get from the Nevada Legislature if he used the phrase (more…)
Thirty-seven inches of snow in February was a problem Atlantic City could do very well without. While the white stuff takes some of the edge off the sobering realization that the Boardwalk is -34% since February 2006, you know the place is in freefall when casino executives are saying they expected it to be worse. Comparing last January to that of 2008 shows a -17% dropoff just in that two-year timeframe, so regardless of whether it’s Donald Trump or Carl Icahn asserting that Atlantic City’s best years are still ahead, you’ve got to wonder what they’re smoking. The city by the sea hasn’t seen a positive year/year casino revenue comparison since August of 2008 and is highly unlikely to ever do so again.
Even as the dueling billionaires continue to fight over the carcass of Trump Entertainment Resorts, it’s an open question whether the company is worth owning. Two of its three casinos rank in Atlantic City’s bottom four for 2010 to date, with a 9% market share. (Borgata alone does twice that.) At the dismal revenue levels posted by (more…)
Update: S&G sends its condolences to Sen. Reid after his wife and daughter were severely injured in an automobile accident this afternoon.
Back when Archon Corp. Treasurer Sue Lowden (left) threw her hat into the 2010 U.S. Senate race, I predicted (in a different forum) that the opposition would reach for Archon Corp.’s business practices as a source of ready ammunition. I didn’t know the half of it. The minions of Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) have rummaged through Archon’s OSHA file and declared that — as bluntly paraphrased by Las Vegas Gleaner’s Hugh Jackson (more…)
“Guess putting up $25 million to found a law school doesn’t get you much love these days.” — unnamed Boyd Gaming executive, reacting to Fortune magazine’s low ranking of the company in, among other categories, “Social Responsibility.”
Pay no attention to the over-budget, behind-schedule megaresort in the background.
“Even I was surprised at the amount of work it requires to be governor.” — Gov. Jim Gibbons (R-NV), upon 
Thirty-seven inches of snow in February was a problem Atlantic City could do very well without. While the white stuff takes some of the edge off the sobering realization that the Boardwalk is -34% since February 2006, you know the place is in freefall when casino executives are saying 