Developer Says S. Florida Could Be Bigger Than Vegas

Sun Sentinel: The developer behind a plan to build the world's largest casino on the Miami waterfront predicts gamblers will spend more in South Florida than they do in the Las Vegas Strip, the kind of grand transformation that now has the mayor of Miami rethinking his support of the project.

The Malaysian-based Genting Group released a one-page summary of an economic study it commissioned saying the addition of three 5,200-room casino resorts would generate as much as $6 billion in gambling revenue a year. The Vegas Strip, long considered the hub of American gambing, generated $5.7 billion last year, according to the Nevada Gaming Control Board.

The striking numbers come on the heels of a letter by Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado to Genting Chairman K.T. Lim that rolls back the mayor's previous embrace of the company's planned Resorts World Miami casino resort on the city waterfront.

"I believe that your proposed project may be one of the best things that ever happened to our community -- or the worst,'' wrote Regalado, who in June presented Kim with the key to the city shortly after Genting paid $236 million for the Miami Herald's waterfront headquarters. "It is too early in its planning to tell."

The mayor's Nov. 8 letter calls for both Miami and Genting to "stop and think and work together, carefully and unrushed, to avoid any problems that may develop" with the massive project, which would include 5,200 rooms and nearly four times as much gambling space as the largest casino in Vegas. Genting issued a statement Wednesday saying it was "working closely with authorities at all levels of government" as it moves forward with the proposed development.

Genting hired Spectrum Gaming Group to prepare an economic study on bringing three casino resorts to South Florida. On Wednesday Genting released a one-page letter by Spectrum stating three casino resorts would generate between $4.5 billion and $6 billion in casino winnings a year. The letter does not make the Strip comparision, but Spectrum managing director Michael Pollock said it's reasonable to imagine South Florida eclipsing Sin City.

"You've certainly got the population,'' Pollock said. "You've got the tourism infrastructure. You've got access to multiple markets -- many of which are untapped by gaming, such as Latin America."

Pollock said the study was based on three resorts the same size as Resorts World Miami. That would mean world's three largest casinos would operate in South Florida. The letter was released the same day Genting executives made their case in front of a Senate committee considering a industry-backed bill that would allow three casino resorts to open in South Florida.

In an interview, Regalado said his letter does not reflect a change in his position, and that the Resorts World Miami project would not be too large for the city as long as Genting can address traffic woes and new strains on city services.

"It could be manageable,'' he said. "But we just need to understand what kind of impact it will have."

Regalado's newest statement is "gratifying" to business leader Norman Braman who recently met with the mayor urging him to reconsider his views on gambling.

"I think it gets back to the more that people really think this through, the more they realize and understand all the pitfalls that casino gambling will bring to this community," Braman said. "I don't think Tomas Regalado wants his legacy stained by being instrumental in bringing casino gambling to this community."

Braman, who recently engineered the successful recall of Miami Mayor Carlos Alvarez, said he will make it his mission to defeat the casino gambling bill and the potential of three destination resort casinos in South Florida. He said he's received an flood of calls in the last few weeks from other community leaders interested in supporting his efforts.

"I will do whatever is necessary to prevent casino gambling from coming into this community," Braman said. "People now are really waking up to what's happening.This is an assault on our quality of life."

Would Las Vegas-Style Casinos Hurt Miami?

Miami Herald: Finally, several months after the initial euphoria over the announcement of a Malaysian company’s plans to build a $3 billion mega-casino in Miami, we are seeing the start of a serious debate over whether this would change this city for better or for worse. The battle over Miami’s soul has begun.

Should Miami become another Las Vegas, catering to wealthy Latin American and European gamblers? Or should it build on its status as the Latin American headquarters for multinational corporations, and center for international banking, health services, arts and education?

Or, to put it differently, does Miami want to be known as the home of one of the biggest mega-casinos in the world — if not the biggest one — assuming the Florida legislature approves it? Or does it prefer to be known as an international trade center that already has 1,000 multinational corporations, a brand new University of Miami Life Sciences and Technology Park, and an Art Basel annual fair that ranks among the world’s top fine arts shows?

Malaysia’s Genting Group announced in May that it has purchased The Miami Herald’s waterfront building for $236 million, as part of a plan to build a Resorts World Miami. The mega complex would have four ultra-modern hotels with a total of 5,000 rooms, two condominium towers with 1,000 units, more than 50 restaurants and 60 luxury shops.

According to Genting, the project will create 15,000 direct and indirect construction jobs, and another 30,000 permanent jobs. The mayors of Miami and Dade County have endorsed the project.

But Frank Nero, head of the Miami-Dade economic development agency known as the Beacon Council, broke the near unanimous chorus of support on Oct. 12, warning that the mega-casino project would siphon customers from hotels and restaurants elsewhere in Miami, and would scare away high-paying professional jobs from Miami.

“In Atlantic City, you had more than 300 restaurants and bars prior to the establishment of casinos,” Nero told me in a subsequent interview. “Now, there are fewer than 60 restaurants outside the casinos.”

What may be worse, mega-casinos would ruin Miami’s status as a growing international trade center. Despite its image abroad as a tourism spot, only 11 percent of Miami’s workforce is employed by hotels and restaurants, Nero said.

“If we allow casinos, it will be increasingly difficult to convince a German life science company, for instance, to locate a major research facility at the University of Miami’s new Life Science and Technology Park,” Nero said. “Their image of Miami is not going to be that of a hotbed of research.”

Asked about it, University of Miami President Donna Shalala told me that “I don’t think the introduction of a casino will affect our ability to attract top scientific researchers, since we are well established now as a world class university.” But she added, “I am not expressing an opinion for or against gambling” in Miami.

James Hughes, dean of Rutgers University School of Planning and Public Policy and co-author of a study on Atlantic City’s casinos, says there is a big difference between today’s Miami and both Atlantic City and Las Vegas when casinos were introduced there a few decades ago.

While in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, there was almost nothing before the casinos, “Miami is a completely different story,” Hughes said.

My opinion: It all depends on how Florida legislators would regulate mega-casinos. If gambling corporations are allowed to build giant resorts with blinking lights, surrounded by “Girls, Girls, Girls” signs, pawn shops, and casino company buses roaming the city offering free rides to take seniors to the gambling places, it will kill Miami as an international business center.

On the other hand, if legislators demand that mega-casinos have a discreet appearance, much like the slot machine and poker facilities at Hallandale Beach’s Gulfstream Park, where you don’t see huge casino signs from the street, and if there are laws to prevent Miami from becoming a Mecca for prostitutes, drunks, pickpockets and con artists, the proposed casino resort could be a good addition to the city.

But, for now, I’m not neutral. Considering how vulnerable Florida legislators are likely to be to big money promises at a time of financial crisis, I’m afraid they will be pretty lax at the time of authorizing full-fledged casinos. Unless the regulators convince me otherwise, I think mega-casinos will hurt Miami.

Ohio Casino See Colleges as Worker Incubator

Columbus Dispatch: Where do you turn to quickly train up to 2,000 people in such jobs as blackjack dealer and slot-machine technician? Penn National Gaming, which plans to open the Hollywood Casino Columbus by the end of 2012, hopes local colleges will be the answer.

The company says it has had discussions with at least three central Ohio schools, including Columbus State Community College, to create several programs to train workers for the $400 million casino. A growing number of colleges nationwide have added casino-related training in the past several years as more states legalize table-game gambling.

"The nearest gaming operation to the area is in Cincinnati, so we don't really have an existing work force that we can draw on," said Karen Bailey, spokeswoman for the Wyomissing, Pa. based company.

Bailey said Penn National has met with officials at Columbus State, Franklin University and Central Ohio Technical College in Newark. But the company is waiting for its new general manager, company veteran Ameet Patel, to create a human-resources plan once he begins his duties on Aug. 1.

Bailey said the casino will need people in areas such as accounting, food service, human resources, information technology, maintenance, marketing and security. But she said the largest need for training likely will be for table-game dealers and slot-machine technicians. "They'll represent a large proportion of our work force, and they're labor-intensive jobs that require very specific skills," she said.

Representatives of the local colleges said it is too early to tell if they can help Penn National, but they are excited about the opportunity. "We stand ready to help customize a specific program for the company or help it tap into one or all of our credit and noncredit work-force-development courses," said Ann Signet, Columbus State's supervisor of continuing and professional education.

Signet said she could see the school helping Penn National with its slot-machine maintenance, customer-service and hospitality needs, but she wasn't sure about the dealer training. "Until we see what exactly they want, it is hard to say, 'Yes, we can,' or 'No, we can't,'" Columbus State spokesman David Wayne said.

Garry McDaniel, an associate dean and professor in Franklin's MBA program, thinks the campus could provide business-management and leadership training to Penn National. To get ahead of other schools, the Knox County Career Center in Mount Vernon offered classes in blackjack and baccarat dealing last fall, but it had to cancel the courses because not enough students signed up. The center hopes to offer the individual courses again next year, along with a full nine-month casino program that includes classes in customer service, hospitality and surveillance, said Jane Marlow, the adult-education director.

"Our training is all about jobs," Marlow said. "We've had some manufacturing jobs go away, and this is a great new industry for Ohio and our students."

Blue Ridge Community and Technical College in Martinsburg, W.Va., has helped train Penn National workers in leadership, computer and English-as-a-second-language skills for the Hollywood Casino in nearby Charles Town for about six years, said Pat Hubbard, director of customized training and work-force development. But it recently became one of three state colleges mandated by the West Virginia lottery commission to train dealers.

The school hired seasoned dealers to teach blackjack, poker and craps. And it set up a school at the casino to teach the trainees, supported by funding from the state. "We trained over 400 people to start up the operation, and now we're down to training about 40 people every six weeks," Hubbard said.

Students typically can be trained for less than $1,000 in 10 weeks or fewer, she said.

"The students usually end up getting a good job at a relatively inexpensive price," Hubbard said. Dealer salaries vary by state, but they typically range from $20,000 to $50,000 a year.

Bailey said Penn National likely will start hosting recruitment and job fairs six months before the Columbus casino opens. Workers who need to go through training likely will be hired three months before the doors open. The company has promised to hire at least 90 percent of its workers from central Ohio, she said.

Atlantic City Casinos Up the Ante

Daily Mail: Soon it might be more difficult to concentrate on the cards at Atlantic City’s casinos.

The Tropicana Casino and Resort is creating a new ‘party pit’ where female blackjack and roulette dealers will wear skimpy bustiers and stockings. It’s part of a desperate attempt by the nation's second-largest gambling market to sex things up as the competition for the gambling dollar grows ever fiercer.

Steve Callender, Tropicana's vice president, said the casino is in the process of hiring dealers ‘with great personalities that look nice’ to work in the new pit. Existing dealers will not be required to wear the revealing costumes when the pit opens over the July 4th weekend.

Down the Boardwalk in the New Jersey gambling hub at Resort Casino Hotel a nightly adults-only Naked Circus is to be introduced in July. The casino has already caused outrage this year with a 60-foot-wide bare bottomed billboard that it placed on the highway in a bid to win back business.

‘It'll be as naked as the law allows,’ said Resorts co-owner Dennis Gomes, who is fast gaining a reputation for his willingness to push sex to promote his brand and generate publicity and buzz. He said the provocative female performers will wear just pasties and G-strings.

The casino has already facing two lawsuits after it introduced revealing flapper costumes for female cocktail waitresses. Older female workers said they were fired after being deemed insufficiently sexy in the new costumes. The black-fringed flapper dresses, worn with black fishnet stockings, are extremely low-cut in the back.

‘Sexiness is just part of it,’ Mr. Gomes said. ‘It's excitement, fun. Everything that Las Vegas has, we're going to have.’

Starting with the 1978 opening of Resorts, the nation's first casino outside Nevada, Atlantic City for years was the only place to play slots, cards, dice or roulette in the eastern half of the United States. But its 11 casinos have been battling for survival as they face competition right on their doorstep in Pennsylvania, New York and Delaware, as well as the recession.

In the last four years a billion and a half dollars of revenue has been lost along with thousands of jobs and tourists. Pennsylvania, which now has 10 casinos, is poised to knock Atlantic City into third place at some point next year.

Singapore Set to Take #2 Gambling Spot

Mercury News: Asia will boast the world's two biggest casino markets as early as this year, with Singapore set to take the No. 2 spot from Las Vegas, a U.S. gambling industry group said Tuesday.

Frank Fahrenkopf, president of the American Gaming Association, said Singapore raked in $5.1 billion in gaming revenue last year and could bring in up to $6.4 billion this year. The city-state opened its first two casinos last year.

Las Vegas, which lost its No. 1 spot to Macau in 2006, earned $5.8 billion in casino revenue last year, but is a mature market with little potential for big growth.

Fahrenkopf made the prediction at the start of a gambling industry conference in Macau. "It's going to be an extremely good year," in Singapore and Macau, he said. Casino revenue in Macau will probably grow 25 to 50 percent this year, Fahrenkopf said. Gambling revenue in Macau, the world's most lucrative gambling market, hit $23.5 billion last year and monthly revenue has grown by at least 42 percent from February to May.

Fahrenkopf warned that Macau faces several problems that could put a damper on continued growth, including a labor shortage and lack of infrastructure as well as a government cap on the number of new gambling tables until 2013.

A possible crackdown on so-called junket operators could also limit expansion, he said. High-rollers from mainland China coming to Macau on junkets are a big source of cash for casinos, accounting in some cases for up to 70 percent of revenues.

Fahrenkopf said the government may change the way junkets operate, which would create uncertainty for casino companies in Macau that have stock listings in Hong Kong or the United States. "One thing that investors don't like is uncertainty. The whole junket question and what's going to happen in the future creates uncertainty," he said.

Junket operators in Macau help facilitate travel by high-spending mainland Chinese to the former Portuguese colony and lend them money for their gambling. Debts are collected once the gamblers return to China.

Gloria Allred and the Case of the Sexy Casino Uniforms

TMZ is reporting that celebrity attorney Gloiria Allred is defending 9 cocktail servers who were fired from the Resorts Casino in Atlantic City to make way for younger women. TMZ's Photoshopped image is on the right.

Allred plans to hold a press conference in Atlantic City at noon Tuesday. The women are suing for unlawful race, sex and age discrimination.

No word on what Allred will really be wearing.

Instant Replay: Atlantic City Casino Workers Fired Because of "Skimpy Uniforms"

Pinnacle Entertainment Expanding in Vietnam

Ho Chi Ming City

Gambling City: Pinnacle Entertainment, which operates several casinos around the US, has entered into an agreement with Canadian firm Asian Cost Development to invest in a project that would bring a Las Vegas-style luxury resort hotel and casino complex to the shores of Vietnam. Pinnacle has agreed to invest US$95 million for a 26 percent share in the project.

The project is part of the new Ho Tram Strip complex of casino resorts in development in a beach city southeast of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). MGM Mirage is also in the process of developing a new casino facility, the MGM Grand Ho Tram, which will include over 500 slot machines and 90 table games. The MGM Grand Ho Tram is expected to open in late 2013.

The move to the Vietnam market represents a large step for Pinnacle. Previously, the company had focused on developing smaller casinos around the US. The company operates several casinos around the country, including facilities in Missouri, Indiana and Louisiana in addition to the Boomtown Casino in Reno, Nevada. Although the company is based in Las Vegas, it does not operate a casino in the city, either on or off the Las Vegas Strip.

The announcement also caught many casino industry observers by surprise. Joel Simkins, a gaming industry analyst with the investment bank Credit Suisse, said that “the deal has come out of left field” for many investors. However, he does see some positive effects from the move, as it “could lift Pinnacle’s overall valuation”.

Las Vegas Sahara Hotel-Casino CLoses

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Las Vegas Considers In-Room Gambling

Denver Post: As the feds are cracking down on gambling in the living room, Las Vegas casinos are trying to bring the activity to your hotel room.

Nevada lawmakers are considering a measure that would allow casino guests to gamble on operator-issued tablets and mobile devices while anywhere on the property, such as in the privacy of a hotel room or while watching a Cirque du Soleil show.

It is one example of how casinos are turning to technology to appeal to a broader set of gamblers in the wake of one of the industry's worst downturns.

MGM Resorts, which operates the Bellagio, MGM Grand, Mirage and other casinos, recently launched a customer-loyalty program that uses "sophisticated predictive analytics" to determine guest rewards, room offers and comps based on the types of games they play, past purchases and other personal interests.

MGM vice president Scott Voeller said the recent downturn is a key reason the company is "on the offensive" with new offers, such as allowing gamblers to earn the option to select a daily song for the Bellagio Fountain show or work as a dolphin trainer at Siegfried & Roy's Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat at the Mirage casino. "We strategically said, 'Now it's time to invest further in our technology and in our programs,' " Voeller said.

Nevada casino revenues dropped 9.7 percent in 2008 and 10.5 percent in 2009, according to New Jersey-based industry research and consulting firm Gaming & Resort Development. Revenues were flat in 2010.

Casino operators are targeting younger, high-tech gamblers with the social media and mobile gaming programs. They want to get in on the latest gadgets," said industry consultant Bill Palermo. Younger gamblers may be more likely to play online, an activity that is in limbo in the U.S. following the FBI's recent bust of top Internet poker operators PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker.

Th casino-issued gambling tablets, which feature sports betting and table games such as Baccarat and Blackjack, already are available for play at some casinos, including the M Resort Spa Casino and the Venetian. But they're currently restricted to public areas such as restaurants and lounges.

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Atlantic City Casino Earnings Down 27% in 2010

Press of Atlantic City: Casino earnings plunged 27 percent last year as the fragile economy and competition in surrounding states made it more challenging for Atlantic City’s gaming industry to make money.

Altogether, the 11 casino hotels posted gross operating profits of $534.9 million in 2010, compared with $729.7 million in 2009, year-end figures released Monday by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement show.

Operating profits fell 44 percent in the fourth quarter to $62.6 million, reflecting a dismal winter for the nation’s second-largest casino market.

Tropicana Casino and Resort was the lone standout for 2010, posting higher operating profits for both the fourth quarter and the entire year. Tropicana is in the midst of a turnaround under the ownership of billionaire financier Carl Icahn, who bought the property for $200 million last year after the troubled former operators were stripped of their casino license.

Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa saw its operating profits drop nearly 15 percent in 2010 but maintained its No. 1 position overall at $174.7 million. Harrah’s Resort was second at $134.6 million, down 9 percent from a year ago.

The Atlantic City Hilton Casino Resort, Resorts Casino Hotel, Trump Marina Hotel Casino and Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino all posted operating losses for the year. The Hilton was the biggest loser, posting an $18.9 million operating loss, followed by Resorts at $18.6 million.

Trump Marina, which suffered an $8.3 million operating loss for 2010, is under sale for $38 million to Landry’s Inc., a Houston-based gaming, restaurant and entertainment conglomerate.

While weaker properties such as the Hilton are in the red, Atlantic City’s gaming industry remains profitable overall. However, it continues to be hurt by the sluggish economy as well as stiff competition from casinos in surrounding states. Pennsylvania, Atlantic City’s chief rival, introduced table games last July to intensify their border war.

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Atlantic City Casino Workers Fired Because of "Skimpy Uniforms"

NBC New York: Sixteen cocktail waitresses at Resorts Casino Hotel in Atlantic City were fired after being told they’re not a fit for the casino’s new sexy uniforms.

All of the 16 women who lost their jobs were middle-age, long-time employees who were happy to retain their jobs after the casino’s sale only to lose them because of their appearances in a skimpy costume. Union Officials say that Resorts is using the 1920s flapper-style uniforms as a way to get rid of older cocktail waitresses in order to cultivate a younger clientele.

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