Steve Wynn’s an unhappy camper

A decade ago, Steve Wynn would badmouth doing business in Nevada and warble sweet hymns to that capitalist’s paradise, China. How times change. On yesterday’s quarterly earnings call, Wynn was apoplectic about the Chinese government’s shifting policies in re Macao. “In my 45 years of experience, I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Wynn complained, expressing skepticism about the government’s promise of “supportive” — but undisclosed — new measures for the casino industry. Wynn’s dander was up, calling Peking‘s policy “ludicrous,” and his stock price down — dipping 7.5% over the course of the call, which disclosed a 32% revenue decline at Wynn Macau and Encore Macau. The company still managed to eke out a $74 million profit.

Wall Street analysts expected over $1 billion in earnings from Wynn Resorts and it ‘only’ delivered $996 million (down from last year’s $1.3 billion). Deutsche Bank analyst Carlo Santarelli‘s reaction was, “A craps player once said, ‘nothing’s sweeter than a repeater’. That does not apply here.” Wynn would have been unamused by the observation, complaining that “Almost half the business of VIP is gone and may be shrinking … it has caused us to review our credit policies and relationships with junket operators.”

A particular sore point with Wynn is the Macao government’s unpredictable approach to allocating table games. It only allotted 150 to Galaxy Entertainment‘s newest casino (designed for 400) but is expected to gift Studio City Macau with 250, in a display of favoritism toward Lawrence Ho. Even so, Wynn was sympathetic to his competitor, saying, “The notion that someone who has spent $2.5 billion, and I’m talking about Melco [Crown Entertainment] now, doesn’t know how many tables they’re going to have … weeks before opening is preposterous.”

Wynn is stymied himself at $4.1 billion Wynn Palace, which was built to hold 500 table games — but the mogul doesn’t know how many dealers to hire or train because he still has no visibility with regard to how many tables he’ll actually get. Referring to the non-casino attractions that represent seven-eights of Wynn Palace’s cost, Wynn raged, “The reason these extraordinary non-gaming attractions exist is because the damn casino is the cash register. The gaming allows the non-gaming to flourish, and that’s the lesson we’re trying to get to penetrate the leadership of Macao.” You have to wonder how such confrontational rhetoric will play over in China, where it’s custom to shade anything smacking of criticism with a heavy veil of deference.

The Macanese malaise is also infecting Wynn’s Las Vegas Strip business. “Any drop in our earnings in Las Vegas is a result of a drop in our Asian baccarat business,” and indeed casino revenues were down 15%. “So if a segment of the international market is impacted … then we would be the principal victims, or we would suffer the most. That’s exactly what happened.” He added, “the problems in China are causing us to refocus our energies in America.” Ah, home sweet home.

In other Wynn developments, he has lured former Southern Nevada water tsarina Pat Mulroy away from the Nevada Gaming Commission and onto the Wynn Resorts board, making it co-ed again.

* MGM Resorts International is nibbling around the edges of its customer-rewards programs, perhaps hoping to pare down its looming corporate debt load with niggling cutbacks here and there. For instance, if you’re playing the tables in Las Vegas, you won’t be able to earn Express Comps anymore. Platinum members of M life also will have to kiss the “Access to the Dedicated Concierge Phone Line” goodbye. There are a few vague enhancements but the overall tone of the announcement is decidedly negative and smacks of corporate belt-tightening.