“It’s just antiquated technology. Why should customers have to gamble with coins? When we are trying to promote an international standard casino and players walk in to the main floor they look around and think this is a B-grade or even C-grade property. It just doesn’t seem right that South Australia should be the odd one out.
—Nigel Morrison, CEO, SkyCity Entertainment, on his campaign to bring bill acceptors to the SkyCity casino, which is in Adelaide, the capital of Southern Australia, the only state that requires bettors to play with tokens or coins
“We are long-term believers. Macau will be a big and very sustainable mass market. Right now, it’s dominated by VIPs—and we all know why they’re not gambling these days. They just don’t want any attention.
—Brian Han, Morningstar analyst, on why the firm remains bullish on Macau
“We see Las Vegas as one of the three pillars of the company. This is where the market is, where our most important customers are located, and it’s why we decided to elect Las Vegas as the headquarters for gaming.”
—Renato Ascoli, IGT’s CEO of North America Gaming and Interactive, to the Las Vegas Review-Journal on why the former Rome-based GTECH chose Las Vegas as its gaming headquarters after acquiring IGT
“We’re living in a different day and age. These people have grown up technologically advanced. I don’t think table games and slot machines necessarily appeal to them.”
—Wynn Resorts Operations VP Sean Christie, commenting to Travel Weekly on the opening of the millennial-friendly Encore Player’s Club
“We live in a world of crisis. So when you live through this, it becomes a non-issue. Every day you see all this news in the world and everybody is trying to handle crises. The best way to look at crises is to look at them as part of life, and that has always been my philosophy in my 40 years of working life.
—Wilfrid Wong, president and CEO, Sands China, on the ongoing turbulence in the world’s top gaming jurisdiction
“Local communities might be excited about the employment opportunities at a tribal casino but, on the other hand, might not like it that the casino is exempt from local wage and hours laws.”
—Kevin Rosenberg, a Los Angeles attorney who works on gambling cases, commenting on opposition that often arises towards Indian casinos
“What we heard today is that they need to know the rules of the road. So as long as the rules are, in their terms, commercially viable and technologically feasible, they will welcome them. That seems like a perfectly reasonable starting point.”
—Stephen Crosby, chairman of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission during a day long forum when the commission learned about fantasy sports from representatives of DraftKings and FanDuel
“You are dealing with a lot of members who don’t understand how technology works. It is nearly impossible to create these virtual walls. That’s fantasyland.”
—Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who wants to convince fellow members of the U.S. House of Representatives that online gaming is a threat that should be banned
“BetConstruct always stands for creative collaboration in the gaming industry. We believe that it fosters innovation, expands the reach of gaming and challenges our understanding of what’s possible. By releasing Spring as open source, for the first time in the gaming industry we will create a community platform for gaming developers that allow them to implement their own ideas and experiences.”
—Vahe Baloulian, BetConstruct’s chief executive officer on the announcement that the company will release its Spring Platform on open source software
