James Packer‘s run of bad luck has crossed the Pacific Ocean and infected his Australian casinos. Faced with soft numbers at Crown Resorts, he blamed 
players, exclaiming, “The punters are killing us!” Packer was also put on the defensive by shareholders regarding his latest, $1.9 billion foray into Las Vegas when the previous one ended so disastrously. “I have made a lot of mistakes in my life but one thing I try not to do is make the same mistake twice. We’ve got an absolute world-class management team in Las Vegas this time,” he said — scapegoating once again. (It wasn’t Packer who screwed up, you see … it was his management team!)
However, in an effort at cost containment, Packer stressed the joint-venture aspects of Crown Vegas 2.0 with Oaktree Capital Management. and said costs wouldn’t exceed a half-billion dollars. Former Wynn Las Vegas president Andrew Pascal will oversee the project. So far they’re doing better than the last time, by concentrating on one project from scratch instead of buying into everything on the market.
* The inescapable bottom line to stories like the takeover of Bally Technologies by Scientific Games Corp. is that a lot of people are going to lose their jobs. In this instance, 1,900 people will be hitting the bricks, in an effort to shave $83 million from the combined companies’ budget. Worker bees on the production line can at least hope to be spared but it’s open season on everyone else: “accounting, finance, marketing, executive ranks, investor relations and sales.” Scientific is still $3 billion short of the amount it needs to close the transaction, but has three major banks willing to share the load, if other financing doesn’t come its way.
* In an effort to be “george,” Westgate Las Vegas has announced a new $10/hour wage for its employees. Some of them, anyway. If you’re a tipped employee you don’t qualify. (Sorry, waitresses and dealers.) Same with Culinary Union employees, who are covered by a collective-bargaining agreement. “Westgate is implementing this wage increase to attract the very best talent in the hospitality industry and to provide a high quality of life for all of its employees,” read a statement.
Incidentally, we were at the Westgate last Friday, and it looks as though owner David Siegel has already thrown up his hands when confronted with the SpaceQuest Casino and Quark’s Bar areas. Their decor is still present, with Siegel having jammed a sundries store into one of the gaps and evidently called it a day. The former Star Trek: The Experience and related venues must be some of the most wasted square footage in Las Vegas.
* Las Vegas’ dailies have been all over a handful of layoffs at SLS Las Vegas, which cut 2% of its 3,400-person workforce. This sort of attrition is normal for any new casino and, as UNLV‘s Arte Nathan observes, “It’s hard to get it exactly right. But if you’re 98 percent right, that’s pretty good.” The cutbacks have been distributed pretty evenly throughout the property, making this even more of non-story. If anything, it indicates that SLS is doing well in its first two months of operation.
