“I’m afraid. I think I’m one of the last people they are going to bring back. We just want to go back to work. That’s all we want.”
—Mayra Gonzalez, Atlantic City casino buffet worker, who fears her job may be eliminated in the post-Covid-19 era
“Wall Street is harder to beat than the sportsbooks.”
—Frank Taddeo, Sports Illustrated, on Dave Portnoy, of Barstool Sports, who tried his hand at day trading when sports dried up—and lost more $647,000
“Atlantic City does not have a family market. This will open up a whole new market that doesn’t exist.”
—Bart Blatstein, owner of Atlantic City’s Showboat hotel, who plans to build an adjoining $100 million year-round indoor water park
“I like working for a family instead of a corporation. When you work for a family, you don’t leave.”
—Wayne Theiss, Foxwoods vice president of table games, who dealt blackjack from behind a Plexiglas partition when the Connecticut tribal casino reopened
“Despite a promise of payment from Mr. Al Balawi, it never materializes and he ultimately goes to ground.”
—Les Ambassadeurs Club in London, in a statement on Salah Hamdan Al Balawi, a Saudi sheikh who reportedly owes a £2 million gambling debt
“Buffets did generate traffic, but they were definitely loss leaders. Those will not be operating in Phase 1, as well as some other specialty restaurants.”
—Frank Fertitta III, Station Casinos CEO, on a recent earnings call. Fertitta and others think casinos will have to remake the buffet to provide a safer experience
“When you go to Philadelphia, you get a Philly cheesesteak. In Chicago, you might get a hot dog. In Las Vegas, people know about the buffets. If Las Vegas has been reinventing itself over and over all these years, it will find a way to reinvent the buffet to ensure its guests are safe.”
—Donald Contursi, Las Vegas food tour operator, who says the city must create the “buffet 2.0” in the post-coronavirus age
“States are facing unprecedented financial challenges. We are firm believers that mobile sports betting and online gaming legislation will be the type of common sense legislation that states will look to when legislatures return.”
—Matt King, CEO, FanDuel, on why more states see sports betting and online gaming as a way to close some budget deficits
“We are trying like heck to get toward, I hope, before the Fourth of July or at least by the Fourth of July.”
—Governor Phil Murphy, on his timeline to reopen Atlantic City casinos
“I don’t think that most of our citizens have given much thought to the fact of how everything is tied to gaming revenue.”
—Richard Sneed, chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina, on the tribe’s dependence on gaming revenue
“I think there needs to be a lot more communication and cooperation, and I’m not so sure that has occurred. Now, we’re seeing a game of chicken, which isn’t good for the tribes or the state of Connecticut.”
—Vincent Candelora, Deputy House Republican of the Connecticut legislature, on the lack of cooperation between the state and the gaming tribes on reopening tribal casinos
“I wanted to be fairly strict. We tried to put some good strong advice in place as people are on their way to taking a gamble.”
—Governor Ned Lamont, commenting on the signs he posted leading to Connecticut’s tribal casinos, which opened two weeks earlier than he had asked them to
