There’s big money to be made at Wynn Boston Harbor. Primary contractor Suffolk Construction is hoping to entice subcontractors with a bundle of bids valued at $1 billion 
for services and supplies. That’s almost half the construction budget for the Massachusetts megaresort. Essentially vowing to think globally and act locally, casino President Robert DeSalvio said, “Wynn [Resorts] is absolute in our commitment to keep as much spending as possible close to home during our nearly three-year construction phase, particularly with minority, women and veteran-owned vendors.” Meanwhile, despite federal litigation, the Mashpee Wampanoag are forging ahead with activity on Project First Light, planning to be the second Bay State casino to market, opening roughly a year from now.
* American Gaming Association President Geoff Freeman has really got a bee in his bonnet about the legalization of sports betting. Every day, there’s at least one AGA jeremiad in the e-mail inbox (today I’ve already received two). We agree with Freeman but have to observe that AGA has rapidly come a long way since the days when Frank Fahrenkopf operated behind the scenes, moving with catlike quiet and caution.
* If insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result, then New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) is crazy. He wants to take the Garden State’s sports-betting case back to the Supreme Court, even though the Supremes have rejected it once before and Christie is fresh off a crushing defeat in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. In Christie’s defense, he did admit the case was a “long shot.” We’d call it a Hail Mary pass with 0:01 on the game clock.
* There’s one form of gambling that’s absolutely not to be tolerated and that’s animal fighting. Las Vegas Metro busted the largest cockfighting operation in state history (a record we could do without). The animals were kept in inhumane conditions and the roosters had been mutilated in a fashion that reminds me of Plucky, the fugitive rooster who ‘adopted’ us several Easter Sundays ago. “I’d like to tell you that it’s rare, but from what we believe is, it occurs and it occurs regularly,” said Metro’s Robert Sigal. Sadly, seven puppies died while in the process of being rescued. As for the human scum who were running this racket, one only hopes that swift and severe justice is meted out.
* Is the bigger story that there was a fire in an Aria kitchen or that the fire-suppression systems worked exactly as intended? One person did suffer smoke inhalation but we’ve made quantum progress in fire safety on the Las Vegas Strip.
* If you’re running a locals casino, how can you obtain more value from your property? Here are 18 ideas, straight from the front lines.
