Meet Dianna Duran, secretary of state for New Mexico and, as of this week, America’s most prominent gambling addict. She’s
been hit with a 64-count corruption indictment for, among other things, alleged money laundering and embezzlement. Duran is accused of siphoning campaign monies into her personal bank accounts, activity that “often culminated with cash expenditures at casinos throughout the state.” Duran certainly hasn’t been knocking herself out on the job, collecting only 4% of fines for campaign-law violations racked up by Land of Enchantment politicians in the 2012 and 2014 elections.
Gov. Susana Martinez (R, below), who knows a thing or two about casinos, having negotiated with so many of them, said “These allegations are deeply troubling and concerning, and all relevant state agencies have and will continue to assist the Attorney 
General throughout the process.” Duran, meanwhile, is carrying on as though nothing were the matter. As casino patrons go, she’s a veritable ‘whale,’ withdrawing five- and even six-figure sums at as many as eight of New Mexico’s tribal casinos (Sandia Casino seems to have been her favorite). As a player, she appears to have been a loser, with the attorney general enumerating only $4,513 in Duran gambling income. If she beats the house this time, it will be a miracle.
* Speaking of Martinez, her administration is in federal appeals court, trying to keep the Pojoaque Pueblo from going over its head and negotiating a new gaming compact with the Interior Department rather than the state. The Pojoaque seem to think that their casinos deserve special treatment: They want to opt out of the state’s no-drinks-on-the-casino-floor policy, lower the drinking age to 18 and cut the state completely out of revenue sharing, going from 8% to zero. (No other New Mexico tribe has kicked up such a ruckus, to our knowledge.)
The flashpoint appears to be an increase in the amount of gambling revenue paid by (other) tribes to the state. Pueblo Gov. Joseph Talachy cried foul, saying, “What the state is asking for is additional revenue sharing monies from tribes when the gaming market is basically declining in the state of New Mexico. Even though they know that, they want to take resources from the most impoverished, from the people with the least jobs. You can see history repeats itself.” Given the determination of the pueblo not to yield, this fight could easily go to the steps of the Supreme Court.
* Galaxy Entertainment Chairman Lui Che Woo has pronounced the Macao casino market “stabilized” (perhaps in the sense that a sinking ship that hits the seabed is “stabilized”). “I am 
optimistic that in one year or two years, it will improve,” the mogul said, offering a version of optimism that may find few other takers among his colleagues. He’s sanguine about the loss of $8.5 billion in personal net worth and spinning the depression of the Macao market as a positive. “The economic slowdown is a good thing. Over the past decade or so, expansion has been extremely fast, so it has to slow,” he told the BBC. Given the wave of megaresorts coming on line in the next year, the slowdown picked a heckuva time to manifest itself.
* Recovery might be farther away than the Galaxy boss thinks. A
survey by Macao’s Gaming Inspection & Co-ordination Bureau found that 14% of tourists polled said they would come to 
the enclave less often in the event of a smoking ban. Trying to dress up those numbers as a positive, the agency said gambling revenues would “only” fall 3% to 5%. While the percentage of Macao visitors who habitually smoke may be 23%, when gambling as many as 50% light up. Faced with numbers like those it appears less and less likely that the smoking ban will be implemented.
