MGM hearts Japan; Atlantic City aims for total victory

According to Reuters, if casinos are legalized in Japan, then MGM Resorts International would be willing to build the world’s second $9.5 billion megaresort. (Las Vegas Sands has already brandished $10 billion.) That’s leading with your chin. However, MGM believes that the Land of the Rising Sun is one of the world’s few markets where you can hit pay dirt that justifies that level of investment. Certainly not South Korea, where the restrictions on gambling by the citizenry are also a deterrent to a heavy capital commitment. At minimum, MGM is promising just under $5 billion toward a Japanese casino, numbers clearly meant to dazzle the Diet and bolster Prime Minister Shinzo Abe‘s latest pro-casino push. (Abe never really seems to “push” the issue, merely nudge it gently.) MGM CEO Jim Murren‘s pitch is contingent on the megaresort said being in Tokyo, Osaka and Yokohama but if the company funds the project through its REIT — so says Reuters — “multiple blue-chip companies” could get in on the deal.

Regional casinos in the far north and south of Japan have been mooted but American operators are (understandably) only fixated on the big sushi roll that is the country’s three or four largest cities. Murren, who was in Japan to lobby for casinos, emerged from a meeting to say using the company’s new REIT would both minimize MGM’s risk and spread the opportunity to get in on the ground floor. “That could be an interesting way to expand the level of involvement, as there are many investors who are risk-averse and looking for yield and others who are risk-tolerant,” Murren said. He put the completion date of the project as somewhere in the 2022-23 range.

* “It’s over. There’s no chance it will win.” So said New Jersey casino expansion proponent state Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D) of this month’s ballot question to bring casinos to the northern part of the Garden State. The iniative’s doom has been a given for some time now but opponents are trying to run up the margin of defeat, to deter a 2018 reboot with what Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian calls an “absolutely crushing mandate” in favor of the Boardwalk. Unite-Here Local 54 President Robert McDevitt echoed Guardian, telling The New York Times, “We have to make that spread as big as possible so it doesn’t come back again.” The anti-initiative campaign has made some strange bedfellows, such as Resorts Atlantic City owner Morris Bailey and Genting Group, which hopes to fuel Montreign in New York State with north-Jersey players.

Gov. Chris Christie‘s support of the initiative turned out to be a kiss of death and with expansion leaders like Jeffrey Gural having thrown in the towel several weeks back, it’s a good question whether pro-expansion voters will manifest themselves in any significant number. The failure of the effort is already a serious loss of face both for Christie and his likely successor, state Sen. Stephen Sweeney (D). As Gural told the NYT, “Bridgegate certainly didn’t help us when people hear this message, ‘Don’t trust Trenton.'” (The initiative was vaguely worded as to where the new tax revenue would go or even what the tax rate would be.) Gural, however, overstated his case when he says, “The argument is 100% moot. Nobody’s going to Atlantic City.” He clearly hasn’t been to Borgata lately, if ever.

* Forget about Boarding Pass. It’s being superseded with a new Station Casinos loyalty program called My Rewards. Since users get 50 credits for every dollar spent on hotel rooms, it’s a better play for tourists than locals, especially when a buffet visit gets you only one point on the dollar. Station hasn’t overlooked anything, however: Skate on one of its three ice rinks and you’ll get 10 points for ever dollar spent, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. No slot-point accruals are indicated — surely there must be some — but you can run them up on table play, through a matrix of game type, size of wager and time spent playing. Only the name of the new card, not very catchy, is an outright disappointment.

* Mark your calendars: June 2019 is Wynn Boston Harbor‘s designated opening date. With tribal First Light resort tied up in court, Wynn Resorts has a chance of being first to the punch in the Beantown area.