“To be honest with you, they don’t spend that much money. I don’t know who’s paying for those ,000 bottles.”
—Scientific Games Vice President and Design Chief Allon Englman, commenting to the Associated Press that his company is not rushing to invest heavily to create slot games to please millennials
“Poker seems to be doing very well, particularly in a geography that doesn’t get enough attention. Almost all of the boom in the United States in the past five to 10 years has been in the Northeast.”
—Nolan Dalla, creative director for the CBS program Poker Night in America, commenting to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that the stories of poker’s decline in the U.S. have been exaggerated
“There was a period through the 1990s when there was a great increase in gambling. That then tailed off in the 2000s as the community came to realize the risks involved. But that doesn’t account for people who are still gambling and gambling at very high levels, particularly on pokie machines. There’s a group of people in the population who are experiencing substantial harm.
—Anna Thomas, manager, Australian Gambling Research Centre, on a 6 percent rise in gambling losses, which occurred during a drop in gambling overall
“As they get more money or shall we say funds that they can spend, they will spend the same proportion of gambling as they do on everything else. There’s nothing surprising about those numbers going up 6 percent because I reckon we’ve had at least that much inflation over the period.
—Len Ainsworth, chairman, Ainsworth Game Technology, on the spike in gambling in Australia
“If there’s still much debt uncollected, the liquidity will be too tight for some junkets to survive and we’ll see more closures. Macau won’t return to the heyday.”
—Kwok Chi-chung, president, Macau Association of Gaming & Entertainment, on the difficulty experienced by Macau junket operators trying to collect debt
“Wong rejected suggestions that the new unit would threaten Macau residents’ online freedom of expression, saying the unit would focus on monitoring internet traffic through key facilities using ‘internationally recognized means,’ which hopefully isn’t code for ‘stuff the NSA does.’
—CalvinAyre.com, on plans by Macau Secretary for Security Wong Sio Chak to establish a cyber-security unit to combat online crime
“If no part of the ‘gaming establishment’ is located in the city of Boston, then it cannot be a ‘host community. The site plan for Wynn’s proposed casino is before the court and it cannot be disputed that its boundaries fall entirely within the city of Everett.”
—Superior Court Judge Janet Sanders, dismissing Boston’s legal challenge to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission’s awarding a casino license to Wynn Resorts to build in the city of Everett
“Put simply, the gaming act has no impact on MGM’s ability to take whatever steps it chooses to take toward developing a casino in Connecticut.”
—Connecticut Assistant Attorney General Robert Deichert, arguing that MGM’s lawsuit challenging the state’s law that allows its two gaming tribes to go forward with identifying a site for a third, satellite casino should be dismissed
“As the Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act moves to the Senate, it is crucial for lawmakers to understand that tribal sovereignty and tribal economies cannot survive without the right to regulate labor relations within tribal territories.”
—Robert Odawi Porter former president of the Seneca Nation of Indians, writing in favor of a bill in Congress that would remove Indian tribes from the jurisdiction of national labor laws
“For the first three full months Plainridge Park has been open, Twin River’s gaming revenue has declined 6 percent—a modest amount compared to other casinos that have experienced new supply in their primary market.”
—Moody’s Investor’s Service, commenting that Twin River Casino in Rhode Island has not seen revenues plunge as dramatically as had been predicted when the first Massachusetts casino opened in June
“Boy, vice is still alive and well in Oregon. While it’s encouraging for a bean counter maybe, it’s kind of scary because of the Sodom and Gomorrah kind of thing.”
—Oregon state economist Mark McMullen commenting on the rise in revenues for the state lottery after new video lottery terminals were installed
