Автор: genom

A recent poll revealed only 3 percent of New Jersey residents have participated in that state’s Internet gambling thus far but a much larger number planned to take part this year.
The poll, conducted by the Lloyd D. Levenson Institute of Gaming, Hospitality and Tourism at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey surveyed 600 residents.
“Interest in online gambling is growing and should continue to grow once marketing efforts and promotions take off,” said Institute director Israel Posner.
As an aside, the poll found 55 percent of residents support legalized sports betting in the state.

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As expected, following the announcement of surging gambling in Macau, two of the biggest beneficiaries were Wynn Resorts Ltd. (WYNN) and Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS).
Wynn Resorts reported revenues of $1.52 billion, an increase of 18 percent over 2012, and net income of $213.9 million or $2.10 per share compared to last year’s $111.4 million or $1.11 per share.
Also rising was the company’s revenues in Las Vegas. The company said its Las Vegas revenues grew by 2.4 percent to $400 million.
“Results were primarily driven by strong mass market revenues in Macau, which we’re favorable, given that it is a more stable and higher-margin business,” said John Kempf, gaming analyst for RBC Capital Markets.
For the year, Wynn Resorts posted revenues of $5.62 billion, an increase of 9.1 percent of the $5.15 billion registered in 2012. Net income, during the period was $776.8 million or $7.64 per share. A year earlier, net income was $558.3 million or $5.36 per share.
CEO Steve Wynn said the “numbers speak for themselves.” He added that his Wynn Palace project on Macau’s Cotai Strip should be opening in the next 23 months.
On a controversial note, Wynn said his gaming company is definitely being impacted by the recently-required Affordable Health Care Act and he and others were struggling to overcome its effect.
Wall Street was impressed by Wynn’s report. By the end of trading on Friday, WYNN shares were trading at $217.42
Las Vegas Sands
Although the numbers from Macau were outstanding, Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS) shareholders were not treated as kindly as WYNN shareholders, following the company’s quarterly fiscal report.
In fact, one publication headlined its report, “Las Vegas Sands Rolls Snake-Eyes on Earnings.”
That, however, was far from reality.
For the quarter that ended on Dec. 31, 2013, Sands reported revenue of $3.66 billion, a 19 percent increase over last year’s $3.08 billion. Net income was $577.5 million or $0.70 per share. A year ago, the net income was $434.8 million or $0.53 per share.
Analysts had forecast revenue of $3.72 billion and per share earnings of $0.83. As a result, LVS shares fell during trading, only to recover a bit on Friday when the share price closed at $76.51
The problem with Sands’ Singapore operation was an extremely low hold, said analysts. The hold was given at 1.92% versus a normal hold of 2.85%.
For the full year, the company reported revenues of $13.7 billion (more than all of Nevada and New Jersey gaming revenues combined) and net income of $2.31 billion. This easily topped the $1.52 billion recorded in 2012.
Mohegan Sun
The Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority, operator of the Mohegan Sun Casino Resort in Connecticut, and a suitor of a Massachusetts casino license, reported a major shortfall in earnings during the quarter that ended on Dec. 31, 2013.
Net income for the quarter was $33.3 million on revenues of $312.8 million. Last year, revenues were down about 4 percent while net income was at a lofty $42.2 million.
The operating company blamed the decline on a weakness in the country’s economy.
The company also operates a racino in Pennsylvania and hopes to receive a casino license to be located in Revere, Mass.

Californians will get some idea on just what impact online gambling will have on the state during the inaugural iGaming Legislative Symposium slated to be held Feb. 27 at the Sheraton Grand Sacramento Hotel in the state capital.
Organized and produced by Pechanga.net and New Jersey’s Spectrum Gaming Group, the symposium will bring together industry leaders to examine the key policy decisions that will be considered this year by California legislators.
Such issues to be discussed are regulation and taxation, both of which will determine the success of Internet poker, as well as influence the advancement of Internet gaming in other states.
Speakers will include Geoff Freeman, president and CEO, American Gaming Association; Mark Macarro, chairman, Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians; and Richard Schuetz, commissioner, California Gambling Control Commission.
They will focus on these subjects:
What can California legislators, regulators, and operators expect with the pending legalization of online gambling?
What are the political pitfalls and opportunities for making iGaming a reality in California?
Who are the stakeholders that will participate in operating California iGaming?
What are the potential regulators’ options and how are effective regulatory regimes developed?
How should California structure its iGaming tax policy and what is the most effective policy?
Should California lawmakers approve Internet gambling this year, the state would join Nevada, Delaware and New Jersey in offering online gambling.

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For years, Las Vegas casinos have welcomed gamblers from China, especially during the Lunar New Year celebration. Now, a gaming mogul from Hong Kong hints that his expansion plans for Galaxy Gaming could include a property in the U.S.
It isn’t high on his agenda at the moment since he has major development plans in Macau. He also is focused on expected casino approvals in Japan and Taiwan.
And, Lui Che-woo, Asia’s second richest man, is 84 years old.
Age won’t interfere with his business plans, he told the Macau Daily Times. He’s just hitting his stride, he said.
“What can I do if I retire, watch the sun rise and set?”
Lui made his fortune in construction and real estate. And he is certainly familiar with the American market since he owns 13 hotels in the U.S., including seven Hiltons. Now, he said, he wants to do something “meaningful. I don’t want to just sit there waiting to die.”
It was only a decade ago that the chairman of Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd. acquired a Macau gaming license, initially as a partner with Las Vegas Sands Corp. but later on his own. His Galaxy Macau resort on Cotai is allowed to build a maximum floor area of 21.5 million square feet, the most among the city’s six casino operators. That would quadruple the size of its existing resort.
Lui said that as part of his expansion plans for Galaxy he is open to acquiring U.S. casinos.
He describes gambling in Macau as “being different now” from the decades during which gambling was controlled by kingpin Stanley Ho.

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The billions lavished on Macau resorts by Las Vegas companies is returning benefits to the Southern Nevada economy. That’s the way Steve Wynn sees it.
The Mirage Resorts chairman does not expect this super-sized spending spree to diminish any time soon, not with MGM starting construction of its second Macau resort, Sheldon Adelson continuing to build there and Wynn already looking ahead to phase two of the company’s Wynn Palace, which will not even open for nearly two years.
It adds up to something that is very good for Las Vegas, he said. The earnings generated by resort companies half a world removed from Las Vegas have helped fuel a level of continuing Strip energy that would not otherwise exist. Wynn views it as benefits of gaming’s globalization.
It’s helped stabilize an industry that has not enjoyed the best of times over the last four or five years as domestic consumers slowed their spending.
Steve Wynn seldom side steps an opportunity to make his points when the mood strikes, in this case teeing off on critics of the development capital American companies have been spending elsewhere around the world.
Wynn, MGM and Sheldon Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands will dedicate additional billions to other Asian ventures as companies get green lights from the governments. There’s a lot of money available for opportunities from Macau to Korea, Japan and possibly Mainland China. It’s all a matter of deciding how to best satisfy regional appetites for travel and tourism.
Wynn continued, “Were it not for foreign investments, our Las Vegas properties would look nothing like what they are now.” Of the more than $1.9 billion in gross revenue last year, Wynn said at least $1.2 billion of that figure was international income.
“This was our customers bringing money from aboard into the United States. It offset a lot of imports.” Wynn was looking at the big picture of marketing travel to the U.S. from around the world, implying some critics do not see the picture for what it is.
“Nevada (gaming) is an exporting company as much or more than Walt Disney. The fact that there is a Disneyland in Hong Kong and Tokyo has helped America. It has not hurt America.
“Without the hotels that we’re building and the ones Mr. Adelson is building and MGM is building from Macau to Singapore, things would be much worse in America. A lot of the vitality on the Strip would not exist.”
Domestic business levels would not have justified much of the spending that has occurred along the Strip corridor over the last several years of the Great Recession.”
The travel and entertainment industry spreads benefits far and wide as people move from one place to another taking their discretionary spending with them.
Wynn has made some of the same points as he has discussed possibilities for creating an “urban Wynn” in major U.S. cities, as the law allows.
These would be five-star destination hotels with casinos that would be apart from the public areas in the hotel. It’s appears to be what Wynn wants to do in the Boston area if he gets the license that is to be awarded there in the spring.
The concept sounds a lot like what we already see in Las Vegas with the Four Seasons and MGM’s Mandalay Bay under one roof. Caesars Palace has already turned one of its towers into a Nobu Hotel.
Let’s Make a Deal
The muffled sounds of deal-making are leaking out of Atlantic City as a variety of interests decide how to best take advantage of the opportunities created by online gaming.
The Caesars-owned wsop.com, its partnership with 888 and the Boyd Gaming online vehicles are clearly dominant for the time being and each is looking to build momentum. Wynn Resorts is said to be interested in running one of the Caesars sites or “skins,” as they are known.
This has led to a lot of continuing speculation about the likely extent of Wynn’s involvement there and in online gaming generally. Since online activity within the state’s borders is still very much in a ramping up mode a lot of opportunity will depend on how regulators and even lawmakers respond to the needs of this new industry.
Will they give it the helping hand its needs? Will they sit on it, draping it with red tape and needless restrictions?
The shape of the future will become more apparent as the Atlantic City casinos and their partners step up marketing programs.
Caesars spokesman Seth Palansky is reluctant to peer too far ahead. The company is gearing up for its World Series of Poker that sprawls across about six weeks beginning in late May in Las Vegas. It will draw players from around the world and is being hyped in online promotions in Nevada and New Jersey.
How potential online players respond to marketing associated with the World Series will make it easier to answer a lot of questions. Palansky’s point: patience and disciplined thought will be important as operators look to take advantage of the opportunities – whatever they may be – associated with online activity.
“We’ll know a lot more later this year,” Palansky said.
And by then, the disillusioned Revel investors will have probably handed off their property to another owner and MGM will have been approved to return to the state as co-owner of the Borgata.

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New York City residents are not eager to have a full-scale casino in the five boroughs. And if new casinos are built upstate, most city residents say they would not be interested in visiting.But a majority of city voters support a ballot measure to allow as many as seven casinos in New York State, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll.

The finding is good news for supporters of expanded gambling in the state, including Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. New York City is home to about 40 percent of the state’s registered voters, and Election Day turnout in the city is expected to be higher than in many other parts of the state because of the race for mayor, so support for the casino measure in the city would greatly increase the odds of passage statewide.

Debate over the measure, which would amend the State Constitution, has been muted: A coalition of casino supporters, financed by about $3 million primarily donated by gambling interests, has begun airing television commercials in the city and on Long Island. There is little organized opposition.

The poll quoted the Nov. 5 ballot language, which lists only positive arguments for allowing casinos, such as promoting job growth and increasing education funding. After hearing that language, six in 10 likely voters said they would vote yes.

“That is a strong margin of victory for the gambling amendment,” said Steven A. Greenberg, a Siena College pollster. “If support is 60 percent in New York City, I am hard pressed to see how it could fail statewide.”

City residents, however, were less enthusiastic about opening a full-scale casino in the city, with 42 percent in favor and 50 percent opposed.

New York already has five full-scale casinos run by Indian tribes and nine slot machine parlors at racetracks. Mr. Cuomo and lawmakers have agreed that if the ballot measure passes, they would allow only four casinos at first, and all of them would be upstate.

In the new poll, New York City residents said they expected both positive and negative effects from expanded casino gambling.

Seven in 10 said they thought it was quite likely that the casinos would bring in significant new revenue for government.

“Just in my apartment building alone, twice a month they have buses come and take people to Atlantic City,” Albert Perrotto, 55, from Far Rockaway, Queens, said in a follow-up interview. “If they take them to upstate New York instead, it would be a shorter ride, and people would go upstate, and the revenue would come here instead. It makes a lot of sense to me.”

At the same time, six in 10 city residents said they thought it was most likely that new casinos would increase societal problems such as crime and compulsive gambling.

Quin Stratton, 23, who works for a credit-card processing center and lives in the Bronx, said she supported the amendment but would not want to see a full-scale casino developed in New York City. “If it’s in the city, it will attract people who don’t have a lot of money, and they will blow their whole paycheck,” she said.

“If the casinos are upstate, or far away, it’s harder,” Ms. Stratton added. “They would have to actually get into a car and would have to make that decision. If it’s in the city, then someone who gets off work will walk by and say, ‘Hey it’s a casino!’ and blow everything they just made.”

Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, has promoted the casino measure as an economic boon to struggling upstate regions and has predicted that tourists could be lured beyond New York City by the new casinos. But city residents in the poll expressed little interest in traveling upstate to visit a gambling destination. Only about one-third of city residents said they would be likely to visit one of the new casinos, and two-thirds said it was unlikely they would do so.

The citywide poll was conducted on landlines and cellphones from Oct. 21 to 26 with 1,215 adults, including 701 likely voters. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points for all adults and four percentage points for likely voters.

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