Steve Wynn in China: Wynn Macau.

Wikipedia asserts:

The Wynn Macau is owned by Wynn Resorts and will be a hotel and casino in Macao, People’s Republic of China. It will have 600 rooms, 100,000 square feet of gaming housing 200 table games and 350 slot machines, 7 restaurants, 28,000 square feet of retail space, a spa, and entertainment facilities. It is expected to open on September 5, 2006.

[Wikipedia: Link]

SeekingAlpha reports –

Casino magnate Steve Wynn is sending Jack Binion, a 69-year old casino management veteran from Las Vegas, to head up Wynn Resorts’ new operation in the Chinese gambling center of Macau. Wynn Macau, the second casino run by a U.S. company in the region after Las Vegas Sands’, is scheduled to open Sept. 5.

Comment on related stocks/ETFs: Enzio von Pfeil says Wynn and Sands will be big winners in Macau, but Sands has sold off recently after announcing they want to put another $8 billion into their Macau operation. David Riedel of Riedel Research Group thinks there may be oversupply in Macau.

[SeekingAlpha: Link]

The Las Vegas Sun reports on Steve Wynn, Jack Binion, and Macau –

Jeff Simpson talks to Steve Wynn and Jack Binion about their Macau relationship [July 30, 2006]

Steve Wynn … hired Jack Binion to run Wynn Resorts’ international operations.

Wynn said hiring his longtime friend as chairman of Wynn International is a coup for the company. Binion is widely considered to be the man who understands more about the gambling side of the casino business than any other.

“He’s the smartest inside gambler that ever was,” Wynn told me. “Jack had an interest in doing something on his own in Asia. He was fascinated by Asia. I told him: ‘Jack, I got a (Macau casino) concession. I got land. I got money. What I need is your brain. Come on, throw in with me.’ ”

Binion did just that. He’s already a significant owner of Wynn Resorts, with more than a million shares.

… Binion accompanied Wynn to Macau a couple of weeks ago and met Edmund Ho, the Chinese enclave’s top official, as well as casino kingpin Stanley Ho. Stanley Ho controls the lion’s share of the big-betting action that Wynn and Binion covet.

In addition to Wynn Macau, Binion’s responsibilities will include future development on Macau’s Cotai Strip. Wynn recently secured a 54-acre site from the government for about $100 million.

Wynn, 64, and Binion, 69, have known each other for about 40 years. When Wynn took over the Golden Nugget, Binion was running the Horseshoe across Fremont Street. The two became more than friendly competitors, Wynn said.

[Las Vegas Sun: Link]

Barron’s reports that Jack Binion put down thirty million –

GAMBLING ICON JACK BINION HAS WASTED NO time in betting on Wynn Resorts, putting down $30.2 million for the casino operator’s shares one month after he was appointed chairman of subsidiary Wynn International.

[Barron’s: Link]

Casino City news digest: Macau Casinos and Macau Gambling

Macau Casino World Blog
Photographs of casino construction in progress: link.

Dancing with dragons: Nevada courting Chinese tourists –

With gaming still illegal on the mainland, a reported 60 percent of visitors to Macau come from China. Las Vegas gaming property officials, many of whom are also developing projects in Macau, believe an opportunity exists to introduce the Chinese to gaming over there while enticing them to the Strip. The MGM Mirage, Wynn Resorts Ltd. and Las Vegas Sands all have plans to use its Macau properties to bring visitors to Las Vegas.

“As long as Las Vegas continues to reinvest in itself, and as long as the market remains vibrant and exciting, the expansion of gaming in Asia will, likely, only increase the number of people who might have an interest in coming to Las Vegas,” MGM Mirage spokesman Alan Feldman said. “The question still remains, how will they get here?”

To develop a direct flight from China to Las Vegas, McCarran International Airport officials and the LVCVA must rely on politicking, trying to land one of the very few air-service destinations between the two countries. Air routes between China and the United States are negotiated by each country’s government.

[Business Press: Link]

Looking back: June 14, 2002 — Regulators leery of problems in Macau

Nevada gaming regulators are concerned that Strip developers Steve Wynn and Sheldon Adelson could enter a troubled business, political and legal climate in Macau.

The Desert Inn and Venetian owners head two of the three groups that were chosen as semifinalists by Macau officials to build casinos in the $2 billion gambling market that is controlled by mainland China.

The former Portuguese colony, which borders southeastern China and juts into the South China Sea, is a popular destination for Asian gamblers and has a centuries-old reputation for lawlessness that is reflected in reputed links between organized crime and government officials.

Macau’s gaming properties are money makers for prostitutes and loan sharks, who openly conduct business in the casinos. Law enforcement officials believe protection money is often paid to organized crime triads and political leaders to ensure peaceful operations, although Chinese government officials have said that is all about to change.

“I’m concerned because the history of Macau is somewhat jaded in respect to regulated-type activities,” Nevada Gaming Control Board Chairman Dennis Neilander said. “You have to do a substantial amount of due diligence (or background research on people and businesses) to reach some comfort level.”

But it is difficult, Neilander noted, to guarantee the accuracy of the information gathered on potential Chinese and Macau-based partners.

“The whole political and cultural environment for doing due diligence is far different from in the United States,” Neilander noted.

Macau is a one-hour, high-speed boat ride from Hong Kong. Like the former British colony, it was returned to Chinese rule in 1999 when it was given the semi-independent status of special administrative region.

The city of 438,000 people attracted 10.3 million visitors last year, or more than a quarter of the total that came to Las Vegas.

Last year, the Chinese government opened the casino bidding process to wrest control of the peninsula’s 11 small casinos from 40-year casino operator Stanley Ho as mainland leaders attempt to break the hold of criminals on the gambling market, which is a popular destination for Asians throughout the region.

Wynn, Adelson, MGM Mirage and a joint effort of Park Place Entertainment and Mandalay Resort Group were among the 21 bidders to seek approval to receive Macau licenses.

Wynn declined to comment Wednesday while Adelson’s Venetian lawyer, David Friedman, failed to return a phone message seeking comment.

In 1991, Nevada gaming regulators altered the state’s regulations, which required Nevada-licensed casino companies to seek approval from the control board and gaming commission before they could open new casinos elsewhere in the country or overseas.

The change came as legalized gambling began its decade-long spread throughout the country.

… Nevada-licensed gaming operators Hilton Hotels and Station Casinos ran into legal troubles in Missouri, leading to hefty financial fines for the two companies.

Bally Gaming was the subject of Florida and New Jersey investigations in connection with questionable political payments made before Bally was purchased by Hilton spinoff Park Place Entertainment. The company was scolded by New Jersey gaming regulators but never fined.

[Las Vegas Review-Journal: Link]

Side trip: Steve Wynn, Las Vegas, boxing –

Short jabs
Promoter Bob Arum has said that if [Hasim] Rahman defeats [Oleg] Maskaev, he hopes to take him to Macau, an island off the coast of mainland China, to defend the WBC title Nov. 4 on Showtime. Arum has developed a close connection with Las Vegas casino king Steve Wynn, whose Wynn Las Vegas is co-hosting Rahman-Maskaev with Caesars Palace. Wynn is opening Wynn Macau next month, and Arum is hoping to stage the first boxing show there.

[Boston Globe: Link]

Bringing it all back home –

Pachinko machine maker wins Nevada license

LAS VEGAS — July 13, 2006 — The slot machine maker headed by Japanese billionaire Kazuo Okada was awarded a permanent license to manufacture, distribute and operate gambling devices by Nevada regulators on Wednesday.

Aruze Gaming America Inc., a subsidiary of Tokyo-based pachinko machine maker Aruze Corp., won the license at the end of a two-year limited license period in which it had to prove it could respond effectively to inquiries by the Gaming Control Board.

A unanimous approval by the three-member board puts Aruze one step closer to selling slot machines in the United States, in which it would face competitors like Reno-based International Game Technology and Waukegan, Illinois-based WMS Industries Inc.

The company this week submitted its slot machine platform to a regulatory lab for testing, which normally takes six to nine months.

“Hopefully in 2007, we’ll get all our approvals and start selling nationwide,” said Sandra Placak, director of Las Vegas-based Aruze Gaming. The company also has gambling manufacturing licenses in New Jersey and Mississippi, she said.

Okada, listed by Forbes magazine as having a net worth of $1.2 billion with his family, also controls some 24.5 percent of shares in Wynn Resorts Ltd., where he is vice chairman of the board.

Aruze slots will be used in Wynn’s new casino resort in Macau set to open in September. (AP)

[Link]

On March 14, 1896, seven thousand people gathered at San Francisco’s Ocean Beach to celebrate the official opening of the Sutro Baths, an extravagant public bathhouse envisioned and developed by the eccentric one-time mayor of San Francisco, Adolph Sutro. An early immigrant to the city, the Prussian-born Sutro was a mining engineer, construction expert, and real estate investor who once owned an estimated one-twelfth of San Francisco real estate.
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