Galaxy cautious on Macao; No smoking in Mesquite?

One swallow doesn’t make a spring and, if you’re Galaxy Entertainment CEO Lui Che-Woo, one month of 1% growth in gambling revenue doesn’t constitute a recovery in MacaoGalaxy Macau“Give me two more years to see if there’s a recovery here.” Now there’s a man who takes the long view. In the meantime, he’s expanding Galaxy’s reliance on mass-market play and attractions. Considering that the mass market has gone from providing 25% of Macao’s revenue five years ago to half now, Lui is definitely on the right track, especially since Galaxy is now the lead dog in Macao, having bested Sands China. “While Macao’s gambling industry has hit the bottom, it’s still too early to call it a recovery,” he cautioned Bloomberg News. That puts Lui on the opposite side of the field from Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson and MGM Resorts International CEO Jim Murren, who are already taking victory laps based on August’s tiny increase in gaming revenues. Lui’s goal is grow by 20% the amount of revenue it collects from day trippers and other “recreational gamblers.” To that end, a theme park and an event center are planned.

“There have been strong signs that the market has stabilized, especially the mass market. Yet the real question is how strong the growth will be,” said Nomura International analyst Richard Huang, echoing Lui. The latter declined to address the issue of concession renewal, deferring to the Macanese government. “It is the government that judges whether we are doing a good job, and it will decide how to deal with the licenses during the renewal,” Lui remarked, clearly knowing what City Hall likes to hear.

* It won’t get onto the ballot this year but 62% of Mesquite residents want their city’s casinos to go smoke-free. To make a bad pun, they’re playing with fire. A smoking ban had catastrophic effects on Illinois casinos, relatively minimal ones on Atlantic City and the jury is still out in New Orleans. True, Mesquite is largely a convenience-gambling market for players from Utah and northern Arizona but would the smokers among them press on to Las Vegas in order to be able to light up or would they tough it out in a smokeless Mesquite? (The Virgin River valley is gorgeous but the drive from there to Sin City passes through some of Nevada’s butt-ugliest scrubland.)

* An unholy alliance of the churchy set with the Chuckchansi Gold Resort & Casino (a somewhat disreputable operation in itself) has been trying to kibosh the North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians‘ plans for a Madera County casino in California. They objected to the North Fork band’s desire to conduct gaming 36 miles from its reservation. This week, a federal judge put an end to the matter when he ruled against the euphemistically named Stand Up for California! “While the plaintiffs’ many concerns about the impending casino development are understandable, the law is not on their side,” Judge Beryl Howell told them. It took the North Fork tribe 10 years to go from making a land-into-trust application with the Interior Department to obtaining a gaming compact with the federal government. For the last four years, it has also had to fend off the church/Chukchansi coalition. Howell was able to cite several documents, including an 1851 treaty that substantiated the Mono Indians’ claim to the casino site. Now the tribe can hopefully move forward, as their opponents retire to lick their wounds.

* The Mob-tainted years Donald Trump spent in the casino industry continue to dog him. In particular, a sweetheart deal to buy the Trump Plaza site from Philip “Chicken Man” Testa at a price well above market value stinks to high heaven, particularly considering that the now-defunct casino was built by mobsters Nicademo “Little Nicky” Scarfo and Phillip “Crazy Phil” Leonetti. Trump and Scarfo even used the same investment banker. If Trump wins in November, we can probably look forward to the most mobbed-up White House since the John F. Kennedy years.

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