“It’s like pressing a balloon down—it’s going to pop up somewhere else.”
—Grant Govertsen, Union Gaming, on massive wagers being placed at Best Sunshine casino on Saipan. The VIPs may include those who once played in Macau
“I’ve heard every question that you have in your mind. All my guys, my friends in Macau say this is bullshit. We are very transparent. We don’t want to do anything to break the law.”
—Mark Brown, CEO, Imperial Pacific, which owns Best Sunshine. He says he’s unaware of a U.S. government inquiry into huge wagers at the tiny island casino
“This is America. We protect our borders. Movement of money we track 1,000 percent.”
—Edward DeLeon Guerrero, executive director, Commonwealth Casino Commission, Saipan’s gaming regulator
“We had no choice but to try to curb gambling ourselves, because all recent governments have used people’s desperation as an ATM.”
—Viviana Beccalossi, councilwoman, Italy’s Lombardy region, on the explosion of new slots in the country since an industry deregulation in 2001
“Everywhere you go, you’re always passing a place where you can gamble. Sometimes still today I’ll be in a coffee shop waiting to pay when I hear the noise of a slot machine. I get out of there as fast as I can because I’m afraid of falling back into the addiction.”
—Agostino Lacriola, reformed gambler, who is uncomfortable with the number of slot machines in cafes and bars in Italy
“The entire exercise is based on the presumption that all cash is ‘black money’ and all online transaction is ‘white money.’ This is untrue. We have ‘explained money’ in the books for trading on a day-to-day basis to run the business, but now I am unable to do so. We have no money in cash to pay people and vice versa.”
—Unnamed casino operator, Goa, India, who says business is slow since Prime Minister Narenda Modi demonetized 500 and 1,000 rupee notes earlier this month
“There’s a brown circle around that place killing everything.”
—Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania restaurant owner Thom Greco, among several local businessmen complaining to the Scranton Times-Tribune that the local Mohegan Sun Pocono casino resort’s restaurants and music venues are ruining local food and entertainment businesses
“They are not honest about what the petition is, it will hurt the mall (Outlet Collection). They won’t admit it. They are basically trying to kill the mall in this attempt to kill another project.”
— Region Business Executive Director Joshua Wood, who opposes a petition drive aimed at stopping a $400 million casino from being built in an unfinished mall in Elk Grove, California
“We’re looking past the gambling industry and going in a different direction. For years, Revere has struggled with an image problem: It was the place you could put a slots parlor because people think we don’t know any better. That’s changing.”
—Brian M. Arrigo, mayor of Revere, Massachusetts, home of the long defunct Wonderland Greyhound Park
“We have another opportunity here, so we’re going to take it. We absolutely believe in our case.”
—La Center Card room owner John Bockmier explaining why he and fellow plaintiffs have fought the casino resort being built by the Cowlitz Tribe near La Center, Washington all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court
