One scarcely thinks of Crown Resorts as anything but an upmarket brand. However, as it contemplates debuting in Las 
Vegas and pines after Japan, Crown is developing a new, luxury brand. The unlikely template will be a $1.1 billion, 90-story hotel/apartment complex in Melbourne. Said Crown exec Todd Nisbet, “the idea of being able to come up with a new resort proposition and potentially a new resort brand, we think is a good thing for Crown holistically and where we want to position ourselves over the next 10 years.”
The hotel tower is being built across the street from Crown’s Melbourne casino, so gaming will presumably monetize James Packer‘s billion-dollar real estate play. There’s still no word on Packer’s Alon project for the Las Vegas Strip and, with Packer developing casinos for Sydney and Perth, we’ll probably have to wait a spell before it gets off the drawing board. However, we can take comfort in the fact that Packer is taking a focused approach to the Vegas market, as opposed to his scattershot strategy of 10 years ago.
* DraftKings can point the finger of blame all it likes but, ultimately, it was CEO Jason Robins who stepped in it, according to The Associated Press. In a 2012 interview, Robins “compared his [daily fantasy sports] site to a casino and described the concept as a mashup between poker and fantasy sports. The memo also pointed to text attached to images on DraftKings’ website that used the word ‘betting’ to describe it.” Those were enough smoking guns to provoke Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt to action. At least that takes some of the onus off Ethan Haskell, the DraftKings employee whose questionable acts helped bring DFS under a regulatory microscope.
“It appears that although the sites’ representatives publicly state that they do not believe daily fantasy sports involve ‘wagers’ or ‘bets,’ they 
do use the terms ‘betting’ and ‘wagering’ when they are not dealing with law enforcement agencies,” read a memo from Laxalt’s office. The matter now passes to the Nevada Gaming Control Board and it’s anybody’s guess whether DraftKings, FanDuel and their many ilk want to pay for the dubious pleasure of having the NGCB rifle through their underwear drawer in search of dirty linen. As California Assemblyman Adam Gray (D, left) put it, “Even church fundraisers for bingo night have some oversight.”
Nevada isn’t the only state where the pressure to scrutinize DFS is being ratcheted up, while online action feels the chill. It’s also happening in Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania (where the Lege will be voting on limiting to casinos), Delaware, Ohio and Mississippi. It looks, however, that DraftKings and FanDuel will defy the NGCB. The two are collaborating on a ballot initiative to formally legalize DFS in the Silver State, where FanDuel remains defiant, airing its commercials as much — if not more — than previously.
* Executive turnover continues at Sands China, where CFO Ben Toh will be retiring next April 15. Sands did not comment upon the irony of a chief financial officer stepping down on Tax Day but used the unfortunate “resigning to pursue other business interests,” which usually masks an involuntary departure but is clearly not the case here.
