“How can we compete with Encore? I know everyone thinks it’s just going to be a fly-by-night and people are going to come back, but player rewards, free play—two weeks ago, $500 free play … Rhode Island can’t compete with them.”
—Frank Ciccone, Rhode Island state senator, who worries that his state’s two casinos can’t compete with larger casinos in Massachusetts
“To grow, we need to use the amenities around us, and that starts with rooms, rooms and rooms.”
—Joe Canfora, owner, Wildwood Casino in Cripple Creek, Colorado, in a call to local government stakeholders to make the city a tourism destination
“Sheldon Adelson’s attempts to save the children and the mentally challenged and intoxicated from the evils of casino games on the internet saw him pour untold millions into the campaigns of politicians he hoped would ultimately back a plan to reinterpret the Wire Act.”
—Martin Derbyshire, Play USA, on string-pulling by the Las Vegas Sands billionaire and casino magnate, who wants to ban to legal online betting in the U.S.
“Everything is possible without a casino. Do not create a gambling hall that will only increase the number of gambling addiction patients.”
—Yukio Fujiki, the “don of Yokohama” and chairman of the Yokohama Harbor Transport Association Chairman, who says the city’s plans to pursue an integrated resort are “criminal”
“We have this thing called gambling in the country and it is terrible. I alone as Uhuru cannot change this trend. Go back to the constitution and change the laws.”
—Uhuru Kenyatta, president of Kenya, who is intent on banning betting to end a so-called “gambling craze” in the African nation
“The idea was dangled in front of us like a carrot, starting out as an infatuation, then the wooing became serious and before we knew it we entered into a ‘marriage’—being as clueless as a virgin on her wedding night. And now we are stuck in a toxic relationship that no one knows how to get out from.”
—Sylvania Kenyatta, Kenya Daily Nation, in a column on the scourge of unchecked online gambling in the country
“It will start as a friendship. Followed by small favors. Once you are in… you will never get out.”
—New Zealand Football, warning young athletes about a “new wave of match-fixing and corruption world-wide”
“It’s not automatic that if the players are Chinese, they are all from China. The players are mostly Chinese, but we are not sure if in fact, they are all from China.”
—Victor Padilla, Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp., who contends, at least publicly, that the country’s offshore gaming operators do not serve players on the Chinese mainland, where gambling is illegal
“While Stanley Ho is still alive, he is completely out of the gaming business and is in full retirement. … We expect Melco and Lawrence Ho to clear probity review and receive regulatory approval on the merits.”
—Sanford Bernstein analysts, who say the shadow of gaming kingpin Stanley Ho will not hamper son Lawrence Ho’s acquisition of a major Crown Resorts stake
“Opening the country to receive the casinos is a necessary and mature evolution that we are delaying. We need to make up for lost time.”
—Vinicius Lummertz, São Paulo secretary of tourism, who believes casinos will boost visitation to Brazil
