NEWS & NOTES

Las Vegas Sands has completed a two-year, $15 million renovation of the Palazzo Las Vegas that features a redesigned casino floor, bolstered with the addition of a third cocktail lounge, and updates to the resort’s 3,000 hotel rooms that incorporates LEED-standard lighting, floors, wall coverings and finishings. • Casino REIT Gaming and Leisure Properties (Nasdaq: GLPI) is selling $1.1 billion of senior debt to fund its stake in three of the high-profile industry mergers of the last year. The financings, consisting of 5.3 percent and 5.25 percent notes, are earmarked principally for the purchase of the real estate of Tropicana Entertainment, which is being acquired by El Dorado Resorts, and Belterra Park in Indiana, acquired by Boyd Gaming from Pinnacle Entertainment, which is being acquired by Penn National Gaming. GLPI also is buying Penn’s Plainridge Park racetrack in Massachusetts. • Fortress Investment Group has sold the Westin in Las Vegas to hotel operator Highgate for $195.5 million. The 826-room non-gaming hotel on Flamingo Road just east of the Strip, which originally opened in 1977 as the Maxim, was acquired by Fortress in 2016 in a foreclosure sale. Highgate has partnered with investment firm Cerberus Capital Management on the purchase. • Churchill Downs Inc. has opened a $65 million machine gaming venue in Louisville, Ky., near the company’s famed Churchill Downs racetrack. Derby City Gaming, as it’s called, features 900 historical racing machines developed in partnership with Ainsworth Game Technology. The terminals, which function like slot machines, generate random outcomes based on past horse race results. • Las Vegas Sands has been recognized by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for outstanding achievements in a number of corporate charitable and environmental initiatives. The index tracks the social responsibility efforts of the top 20 percent of the 600 largest Canadian and U.S. companies in the S&P Global Broad Market Index. This year, a record 993 companies participated in the annual assessment. • The Maine Supreme Judicial Court has been asked by the House to render an official ruling on whether a tribe could operate a casino on its reservation without the permission of the state. The question was asked at the behest of a nonvoting delegate of the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians: Rep. Henry Bear. He contends that the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) of 1988 trumps any state law restricting the tribe from offering gaming. • The Massachusetts State Lottery took in $997 million during fiscal year 2018, a slight decrease in the $1 billion made the year before. Still, it was the second highest profit in the lottery’s 47-year history. Sales were a record high of $5.29 billion, surpassing the previous record by $58 million, set in 2016. Lottery administrative costs account for 1.9 percent of total revenues. A record $3.89 billion was paid in prizes, with the remainder distributed to local government. • Genting Hong Kong Ltd has announced it will add another ship to its Dream Cruises gaming fleet: the Explorer Dream. The new ship displaces 75,338 tons and can serve 1,870 passengers. The ship, formerly the SuperStar Virgo, will undergo a $30 million refit, including the addition of a new upscale set of suites called The Palace, and enter service in March to serve the Asian market, plus Australia and New Zealand. • Tokyo’s Bureau of Port and Harbor has announced that it will commission an IR impact study in October. The study will research and analyze the potential impact of an integrated resort on the city. Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike is said to be behind the project. ● The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. has announced that licensed gaming workers will be prohibited from playing in any gaming hall in the Philippines. The workers were added to the National Database of Restricted Persons on September 10. ● Hard Rock International has pledged US$100,000 to the Japan Red Cross for relief efforts connected with the Hokkaido earthquake, which killed 41 people and injured many more. Hard Rock Japan hopes to build an integrated resort at Tomakomai, Hokkaido. ● Maruhan, which operates 33 pachinko parlors in Hokkaido, Japan, has instituted rolling closures at its outlets to conserve energy in the wake of a deadly typhoon. Maruhan said it had already achieved a 33 percent reduction in electricity consumption, well beyond the 20 percent demanded by the government. ● Officials of the Osaka prefectural and city governments are trying to win the support of women for an integrated resort in the region. They recently met to plead their case before a local women’s group called the Tsubomisaku Project, hoping to counteract widespread disapproval of casinos among the Japanese, especially women.