While Sheldon Adelson‘s Las Vegas Review-Journal covered the opening of Wynn Palace from a safe distance, it has sent Richard Velotta to Macao to be on hand for today’s 
opening of Parisian Macao. What he discovered, among other things, was an inescapable plethora of advertising heralding the debut of the newest Macanese megaresort. The Chinese enclave accounts for 53% of Las Vegas Sands‘ revenue. (Wynn Resorts is even more exposed, relying on Macao for 60% of its income, while MGM Resorts International has the lowest risk profile — 33%.) So will Parisian move the needle? “The reality is that nobody knows if Wynn Palace will grow the market, or even what it will take to drive real growth in Macau at this point, especially at the high end of the market,” wrote Union Gaming analyst Grant Govertsen, “We have fairly high expectations for Parisian to be the most likely property to grow the market. Sands China does a better job than the peers in delivering what mass-market consumers wants, and Parisian should hit a sweet spot given the Chinese affinity for Europe in general, and Paris specifically.” Velotta writes that Melco Crown Entertainment‘s Studio City “dazzled guests” with its amenities but neglects to mention that, from a financial standpoint, it laid an egg. However, expectations for Parisian have boosted Sands stock, up 30% this week.
As we have seen from yesterday’s report on South Korea, Adelson is not putting all his eggs in the Parisian basket. “There doesn’t seem to be much more growth here,” said an uncharacteristically pessimistic Adelson about the Macanese market. He identified Japan, Thailand and Vietnam as potential targets of opportunity. He also mentioned Europe, but only in the vaguest of terms, adding, “we couldn’t negotiate the kind of terms we needed.” He added, “We have some ideas for additional growth here in Macao, but not any major integrated resorts like the opening of Parisian today.” While Adelson thinks Macao has bottomed out, he has adopted the cautious stance of Galaxy Entertainment CEO Lui Che-Woo, saying, “Now if it’s sustainable for a long-term pick up, I can’t answer this question.”
* Jan Jones Blackhurst is fed up. In a Las Vegas Sun op-ed, she lashed out at the glass ceiling in the gaming industry. In Nevada alone, only two of the 34 highest-paid casino execs are female (and I’ll bet Jones represents 50% of that contingent). “If you look at the 
10 most prominent gaming companies, there are only three women among the 50 most-senior executives,” she continued. Jones allowed that distaff representation on the boards of Boyd Gaming, Caesars Entertainment, International Game Technology, Sands, MGM, Pinnacle Entertainment, Station Casinos, Scientific Games and Wynn was only “slightly better.” This is an aberration in Nevada, which “ranks sixth in the country when it comes to the percentage of elected leaders who are female.” Heck, Las Vegas-based Switch has an executive team that is half female.
According to Jones, the old excuse for underrepresentation of women in gaming was that the industry was the neither gaming itself nor the associated technology was of interest to them. (Whoever held this old-school mentality probably thought ladies were only interested in playing with Barbie dolls.) However, at the sub-executive level, Nevada leads the nation — just behind Connecticut — in pay equity. Jones attributes this to the extensive unionization of the casino industry, along with legal instruments like Title IX. However, she argues, companies can motivate themselves to do, for instance by vying for high-ranking spots on yardsticks like the Human Rights Campaign Foundation‘s Corporate Equality Index. Jones also puts the onus on gaming-industry CEOs to take the initiative of breaking up the boys’ club and introducing more diversity into their ranks. She asks which company or corporate board is going to bust the glass ceiling and concludes, “I don’t know. I’m going to go shopping.”
Will Jones still have a job after her boss, Caesars CEO Mark Frissora reads that? However, I agree that the casino industry’s performance to date has been disgraceful and that a meeting of influential female casino executives could be held in a minivan — and that was before Isle of Capri Casinos then-CEO Virginia McDowell stepped down.
* Wynn Las Vegas is the stated role model for a proposed card room in Sacramento‘s ornate Elks Tower. Owner Steve Ayers envisions three floors’ worth of gambling, some of which would take place in what is currently a long-disused indoor swimming pool, as well as a “spirits library” for the dispensation of high-end liquor. The ground floor would be devoted to a porte cochere and what’s described as a “chocolate area.” (This conjures up the images of players gumming up the cards with sticky, chocolate-smeared fingers.) The target date for converting the former Armour Steel headquarters is the spring of 2018. The project is partially contingent on Ayers being able to purchase the gaming license of the disgraced and defunct Casino Royale, shut down by the state for not paying players their winnings, (making it retroactively the “Stiff of the Year” for 2014).
However, the City of Sacramento has been resistant to the idea of downtown card rooms. It recently nixed one that would have gone into an ex-Hard Rock Cafe. Ayers has met with Mayor Kevin Johnson and claims to have received encouraging feedback. He adds, “It’s an exciting project that adds to an expanding list of options for people to come to the central city.” Best of luck to him.
