Stiffs and Georges

Every few years, brows are knitted earnestly in discussion of whether this will finally be the year in which Japan legalizes casino gambling. I’ve been hearing versions of this debate regularly since 2005, so you’ll pardon me if I suppress a yawn. Yes, billions of dollars — to say nothing of various Asian currencies — [...]

Ever since the government of Macao put a hard cap on the number of table games in the enclave, casino operators have been forced to do a certain amount of cap-and-trade. In order to stock up Sands Cotai, 200 tables had to be removed from Venetian Macao. According to J.P. Morgan analyst Joseph Greff, these [...]

“Lightweight” might be a apt term to describe the braintrust forming around the SLS/Sahara project. So would “miscast.” Reporting to casino novice and owner Sam Nazarian, its president will be J.P. Morgan investment banker Sam Bakhshandehpour. His main qualification for the job? Well, according to Howard Stutz, “[he] worked with Nazarian earlier this year to [...]

That Aquinnah Wampanoag Tribe effort to obtain the coveted southeastern Massachusetts casino license is quickly being exposed as a thing of smoke and mirrors. Sure, the tribe can get a Class II casino on Martha’s Vineyard — it’s a done deal — but the real money’s in Class III. (The Class II VLT parlor is [...]

Sheldon Adelson must have great and abiding faith in the American legal system … at least some of the time. He’s counting on it to cover his butt over in Macao, where erstwhile partners Asian American Entertainment have filed suit against Las Vegas Sands, more fallout from the company’s promiscuous dalliance with Chinese business interests. [...]

According to the Jornal Tribuna de Macau, by the end of the month, Wynn Resorts and the government of Macao “may sign” the long-awaited land tender upon which the fate of $2.7 billion Wynn Cotai rests. It “could be” a done deal by May Day — in which case I think Steve Wynn should brandish [...]

“Ferries don’t come to Macao during a typhoon but they don’t leave either.” — Deutsche Bank gaming analyst Carlo Santarelli, endeavoring to calm investor fears of “a broader slowdown in China” — anxieties that have driven MGM Resorts International, Las Vegas Sands, Wynn Resorts and Melco Crown Entertainment stocks down anywhere from 10% to 20%.

I’ve been debating whether or not to give Global Gaming Expo a pass this year and this morning’s dispatch from Deutsche Bank’s Carlo Santarelli didn’t exactly quicken my pulse. His prediction? A “quiet” G2E, due to slow growth in the industry itself. Instead of significant new product, Santarelli forecasts a variation on what Steve Friess [...]

OK, so it’s called “paying a premium,” but Steve Wynn finally pried 51 acres of Cotai Strip™ 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 to get $2.5 billion, 1,400-room Wynn Cotai up and running by 2016. Since Wynn has [...]

Oh Christ, Steve Wynn, grow up already. Busy Wall Street analysts were held hostage to a 433-word talk-radio tirade while they were probably itching to write up quarterly earnings reports. When other CEOs might have been bragging on an “amazing second quarter,” beating the Street’s cash flow estimates by $72 million and achieving a 32% [...]

It doesn’t matter to state Rep. Lou Lang (D, right) that Illinois‘ casino revenues are puny compared to those of neighboring Indiana or that St. Louis-area players are defecting in droves. He wants racinos and more casinos, by golly, and won’t stop until he gets them. Never you mind the economic consequences. Sounding like a [...]

For those of you waiting for Boyd Gaming to do something with all its undrawn credit, the moment has arrived. Having surveyed the chips on the board, Boyd has pounced upon … IP Casino Resort Spa (née Imperial Palace Biloxi) in a $288 million deal. Ten million of those clams will take the form of [...]

Caesars Entertainment Chief Marketing Officer David Norton, developer of Total Rewards, got his walking papers yesterday. The old “pursuing other interests” excuse was deployed; familiar industry code for “Don’t let the doorknob hit you on the way out.”
Publicly, CEO Gary Loveman uttered extravagant praise — as well he should, though he slightly misspoke. Without Norton, [...]

Although stock blogger Frank Curzio seems to be talking out of one of his lower orifices, his musings are too bizarre not to repeat. He floats the notion that Apple is so flush with cash it might entertain some retail therapy in the form of MGM Resorts International, Wynn Resorts and Las Vegas Sands. Or [...]

A SoCal-based player kindly shared this image from the latest Aria/M life offer:
My friend ran an experienced eye over the chips on the rail and concluded that it “must be the lowest-minimum craps table Aria has ever seen,” as there’s an aggregate $60 in chips being played. Either that or these presumable mid-rollers have blown [...]

Investors would do well to ask that, not least because of CEO Sheldon Adelson’s attitude of, ‘The buck stops here … except when it doesn’t.’ To hear Adelson tell it, everything that goes awry at Las Vegas Sands and Sands China is the handiwork of those old Family Circus poltergeists Ida Know and Not Me.
But [...]

It’s Monday, which means that Stanley Ho either is or isn’t suing the wife and children who tried to wrest control of his financial empire last week. (Or he’s still telling each side what it wants to hear.) The tug of war has put the enfeebled casino magnate back in the hospital, while an unidentified [...]

The infamous press conference. Hope your Cantonese is up to snuff.

As predictable as the sunrise, today’s headlines brought yet another reversal in the Stanley Ho vs. His Wives & Kids saga, “an ugly and Byzantine family squabble” that is also driving down the value of Sociedade de Jogos de Macau stock. Further complicating matters, the [...]

So this is how Stanley Ho’s world ends: Not with a bang but with the ancient casino vizier giving a televised address in which he laboriously delivered lines from a cue card (partial audio here) and ceded control of his Sociedade de Turismo e Diversoes de Macau to third wife Ina Chan. From Mrs. Chan [...]

Update: In yet another reversal, Stanley Ho says he has sacked his attorney and that the brouhaha over his stock is all a big misunderstanding. Stay tuned for further developments in what’s already a rapidly morphing narrative.
Yesterday, aging (and ailing) casino oligarch Stanley Ho (middle) made news via an announcement that he’d supposedly relinquished all [...]