Steve Wynn is taking the softness of the Macao market in stride. “When you see that kind of adjustment, you adjust your business. You take tables away from VIP and put them into mass or premium mass,” he told Chinese reporters. While Sheldon Adelson‘s Parisian has been slowed by a construction accident and MGM Cotai is hampered by permit issues, Wynn is sticking to his prediction of a Chinese New Year opening of Wynn Palace. He also hinted at (nongaming) investment in nearby Hengqin Island.
While Sands China and Galaxy Entertainment have been targeted for labor demonstrations, so far Wynn Macau has been exempt. His employee turnover, Wynn claims, is the lowest among Macanese casino operators. He did allow as to having worries about the labor pool being big enough to staff Wynn Palace. He said, “My outfit is spending over $4 billion on Wynn Palace. Are we going to have enough employees to run the place? Once you employ everybody in Macao … you are going to have to bring people from outside the region. Or we are going to have empty buildings and other problems that will be negative to this community?”
Wynn didn’t downplay his interest in Japan, saying, If the time comes when Japan is available, we will step up and bring our capital, our experience, our 
imagination to the table.” As for the Macao market, he predicted a shift away from gambling, much as has been seen in Las Vegas. “The energy of the resort and convention business is going to dominate the development of this community. That doesn’t mean that the government will not encourage other developments,” Wynn added, alluding to the Macanese government’s largely futile efforts to diversify the local economy. (Having gone in on casino development on a Vegas-plus scale, the government would seem to have foreclosed its options in that sphere.) There’s also some question of whether the left hand knows what the right is doing. The government has called for casino operators to provide housing for their migrant workers but a Wynn lieutenant said they’d not been contacted on that issue and anyway they were doing it already.
Nevertheless, Wynn predicted a stabilization in casino business now that Fernando Chui has been elected to a second term as Macao’s chief executive. Sounding a refrain familiar from his days of inveighing against the Obama administration on quarterly earnings calls, Wynn said, “political uncertainty also tends to freeze economic activities.”
At least one headache has gone away. An investigation into the purchase of the land for Wynn Palace has concluded that the deal was A-OK. The government wanted to know why Wynn Resorts had to pay a $50 million premium for the acreage. Wynn assured local media that “Everything about the transaction is crystal clear.”
* Trump Plaza is being stripped for parts, as Trump Entertainment Resorts tries to scrape together money to satisfy its creditors.
* Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker had better not see this story. The notion of sending “millions of dollars in profits from the 
Badger State back to Florida,” is not in keeping with his rhetoric about a possible Menominee Tribe casino near Kenosha reviving the local economy. Walker has already set a high bar for approving a Dairyland Park casino and now the presence of Hard Rock International may be more of a hindrance than a help. Hard Rock’s diversionary tactic is to argue that it will claw back casino play that’s currently going to Illinois. But, like so many things in tribal gaming, the size of Hard Rock’s “rake” is wrapped in secrecy.
“The question is, do we really want that revenue from the casino … being sent to Florida? That percentage becomes key, and those factors should be public,” said Richard Monette, director of the Great Lakes Indian Law Center. He estimates that Hard Rock’s cut could be as high as 40%. The Seminoles Indians‘ reputation as the most heavily fined tribe in gaming — $12 million since 1977 — is also starting to draw attention and not in a good way. Potowatomi Tribe spokesman George Ermert, whose employer opposes the casino, said, “We’re talking about FBI investigations, leaders who have been indicted on charges of conspiracy, embezzlement, money laundering.” Expect this tribe-on-tribe verbal violence to continue escalating as Feb. 19 (decision day) draws nearer.
