“I have come to feel strongly that they (Eldorado Resorts) epitomize the kind of management DNA ethos that makes for a continuity of performance over time and worthy of investor notice. The timing at this moment at its trading range seems to warrant a good hard look.”
—Gaming insider Howard Jay Klein on the purchase of Isle of Capri Casinos by Eldorado Resorts
“Many people say that Koreans are very smart and savvy in everything, much like the Jewish people. Maybe Korea is a little bit smaller than any state in the US, but it’s the 12th largest economy in the world. Why is that? Because there is a certain power, ingenuity and creativity in our people. Korea’s talented manpower and broad cultural embracement will be the main driving forces behind the growth of Korean tourism.”
—Phil-lip Chun, chairman, the Paradise Group, which is developing a $1 billion casino in Incheon, South Korea
“Gaming is not our only attraction. It’s less than 10 percent of our property. We have a lot more to offer to non-gaming customers and that was really the focus of our chairman.”
—Maxwell Steele Zetlin, marketing director, Tiger Resort, Leisure & Entertainment, on boss Kazuo Okada’s plan for Okada Manila in the Philippines
“The black market represents around $6.1 billion annually against $4.2 billion of the legal market. Prohibition has not ended illegality. In fact, betting is a way of paying taxes by playing. The first benefit will be that these operations will leave their gray zone to start operating legally; they will be controlled.”
—Magnho José, president, Brazilian Legal Gambling Institute, on parliamentary efforts to regulate the sector in Brazil
“Recently, Goa Congress chief Luizinho Faleiro demanded an opinion poll on the issue of casinos in Goa. He wanted to know whether people want casinos or not. His statement is a big joke. Congress should have taken an opinion poll before bringing casinos into the state.”
—Siddharth Kuncolienkar, Bharatiya Janata Party legislator, who said casinos have made the Indian state of Goa “into a vice capital of India”
“We really struggled. We knew players were saying, ‘Hey, this product is really exciting, it’s a lot of fun, that’s why I play it.’ And we said, ‘OK, how do we put that in an ad?’ I don’t think we were successful there last year. The other reason people loved playing was the prospect and the excitement of winning money, and we focused too much on that. That was definitely a mistake.”
—Nigel Eccles, CEO of FanDuel to Business Insider on the DFS company’s new advertising strategy emphasizing the fun of playing daily fantasy sports
“It would be myopic to assume that fundamental shifts seen in uptake of traditional products and services in other industries as a result of the emergence of the younger population, the internet and digital media, entertainment and delivery would somehow bypass the casino industry. Of course it will come to bear, and the signs are it already has. For operators, figuring this out and tuning the offering will take time, so there is an urgency developing to get moving on the process.”
—Eric Meyerhofer, CEO of Gamblit Gaming, to Yogonet on the importance of developing skill-based and mobile-style casino games for the millennial customer
“We continue to believe, strongly, that this so-called ‘process’ needs to be scrapped, and that a real process needs to be put in place. The General Assembly needs to create one that is open, transparent, fair, reliable and competitive.”
—Alan M. Feldman, MGM executive vice president, commenting on the Connecticut gaming tribes reopening the request for proposals for a third satellite casino in the state
“We’re halting and going, halting and going, halting and going. It seems to be stalling at every turn, and we try to invigorate it at every turn. Why don’t we focus our energies and our legislative will on helping the biosciences, our aerospace, our various industries.”
— Tony Hwang, a Connecticut state senator, complaining about what he considers to be the long, drawn out process the state’s gaming tribes are using to pick a casino site
“We do what we’ve been doing for five years, try to wait and figure out what’s happening with the tribe.
—Stephen Crosby, chairman of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, reacting to calls to reopen the casino licensing process in the Bay State now that the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe’s project has been halted by a federal court
