By Agustino Fontevecchia, Forbes Staff
derived revenue growth from Macau and earnings power from Singapore in the second quarter. Delivering a profit beat, the company run by billionaire Sheldon Adelson failed to top bottom-line expectations, and saw declining revenue in its Las Vegas operations, sending the stock down in post-market trading on Wednesday. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
Bud Selig, the commissioner of Major League Baseball, dropped a bombshell last week when he revealed that he doesn’t use email. What’s more, he pledged he “never will.” BusinessWeek followed up with an article about other execs who feel the same way: Janet Napolitano, Sheldon Adelson, etc. Shunning email sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? But let me ask this: How many of your marketing operations are equally as antiquated? …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
By The Huffington Post News Editors
LAS VEGAS — Casino mogul and GOP mega-donor Sheldon Adelson is back on the witness stand in Las Vegas for what is expected to be his final day of testimony in a breach of contract suit.
Under cross-examination by his attorneys, the 79-year-old multibillionaire was explaining on Monday why he thinks a Hong Kong businessman is not entitled to a payment of $328 million.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post
By Alex Planes, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
On this day in economic and financial history…
The rich silver mines of Nevada withered as the Great Depression dragged on, leaving the desert state in dire straits as its people picked up and moved in search of elusive opportunities. The Nevada legislature, in a desperate bid to attract fresh capital to its sparsely populated state, finally legalized gambling on March 19, 1931. It was a decision that would have a lasting impact on the state’s character and composition and that continues to affect the global gaming industry to this day.
Within two months, the Meadows Club casino (appropriately named, as “Las Vegas” is Spanish for “the meadows”) opened in Las Vegas. It caught fire and was gone from Vegas by 1942, by which point the city’s famous Strip was taking shape with the construction of the Last Frontier and El Rancho Vegas. After the war, a growing American middle class helped give rise to a number of Vegas gaming icons, including the Sands (opened in 1952 and since replaced by the Venetian Sands flagship casino of Las Vegas Sands after its acquisition by a Sheldon Adelson-led investment group), the Desert Inn (opened in 1950 and the site of Wynn Resorts‘ flagship casino since 2005), and the Riviera (opened in 1955 and still in operation).
MGM Resorts‘ Mirage, which cost more than $600 million to build and which was financed by Wall Street junk bonds at the height of the Drexel Burnham Lambert era, ushered in the era of the modern megacasino when it was completed in 1989. This 100,000 square-foot, 3,000-plus room edifice pushed other casino operators to demolish old landmarks to make way for properly competitive megacasinos of their own. Total room inventory in Las Vegas has more than doubled since the Mirage’s completion to nearly 150,000 rooms as of 2009. That year, despite a deep recession, more than 36 million people visited the Las Vegas region to spend nearly $9 billion on gaming activities — a rate of just more than $240 per person.
Five years after the crash began, Nevada has still not recovered its to pre-recession levels. From 2007 to 2012, the total statewide room inventory increased from 178,000 rooms to 195,000 rooms, but total visitor volume dropped by 5%, airport traffic declined by 13%, and both gross gaming revenue and the average daily rate per person dropped by more than 15%. However, the Las Vegas-based gambling industry had long since expanded internationally, particularly to Macau, which generated a collective $38 billion in gaming revenue across 35 casinos in 2012 versus Nevada’s roughly $11 billion in gaming revenue — much of which comes from more than 100 casinos in Las Vegas alone.
For many companies, successfully capitalizing on a booming Chinese economy is like winning the jackpot. That’s indeed the case for gaming company Las Vegas Sands, which made a big …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
By Travis Hoium, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
News yesterday that Kirk Kerkorian has intentions to raise his stake in MGM Resorts isn’t something investors should sweep under the rug before remembering what he has meant to the company over the years. Kerkorian isn’t as well known as Steve Wynn of Wynn Resorts, or Sheldon Adelson of Las Vegas Sands, but he has played a similar visionary roll in MGM‘s history.
Kerkorian began his dealings in Las Vegas in 1962 when he bought the land that Caesars Entertainment’s flagship casino Caesars Palace sits on. When he sold the land to the company, he ended up building MGM Grand, and naming it after the MGM movie studio, which he also owned. Decades later, Kerkorian was behind the merger of MGM and Mirage, which was the company Steve Wynn built, bringing the Mirage, Bellagio, and Treasure Island into MGM.
If Kerkorian wants to increase his 18.6% stake in the company, he must be bullish on both Las Vegas and the economy as a whole.
Bullish on economy
Kerkorian last tried to up his stake in MGM in 2006 when the economy and markets were going bonkers. After the financial collapse, he backed off MGM, but now that he’s on board, I think it’s a strong sign that one of Las Vegas‘ biggest investors is bullish on the economy as a whole and, therefore, Las Vegas.
Kerkorian also has seats on the board, meaning he has insider access to MGM‘s financials. Insider buying is often a very bullish sign for a stock, because insiders know things about a company’s operation that goes beyond what outside investors can know.
What this means for gaming stocks
Before you go out and buy a basket of gaming stocks, it’s important to understand the difference between MGM and other companies. Wynn and Las Vegas Sands are Asian-centric so, if Kerkorian is bullish on MGM, it doesn’t really mean anything for them. Caesars is in a similar position to MGM with high exposure to Las Vegas, but instead of having exposure to Macau, like MGM does, it has exposure to regional gaming in the U.S. If you’re bullish on Las Vegas, MGM is the way to go, not Caesars.
A deep dive into MGM Resorts
When MGM Resorts began constructing the CityCenter in Las Vegas, it was an audacious plan that seemed like a sure bet with its prime location in the center of The Strip. But Las Vegas hit a rough patch during the Great Recession and has yet to fully recover, so MGM has since turned its attention to a new market in Macau. This Chinese gaming enclave now holds the key to the company’s future, and a new resort on Cotai may relieve the company from crushing debt. For expert analysis on whether this former high-flying stock can regain its form on the back of a growing presence in Asia, you’re invited to check out The Motley …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
By The Huffington Post News Editors
March 2 (Reuters) – Las Vegas Sands Corp said it “likely” violated the federal Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which outlaws the bribery of foreign officials, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Friday.
The filing marks the first disclosure by the casino operator, controlled by founder and billionaire Republican donor Sheldon Adelson, that is was under investigation.
The SEC subpoenaed company documents in February 2011 relating to its compliance with the antibribery act while the U.S. Department of Justice also advised Sands it was conducting an investigation, the company said in its annual report filing.
“There were likely violations of the books and records and internal controls provisions of the FCPA,” the company said.
Sands spokesman Ron Reese said on Saturday he had no additional comment beyond the SEC filing.
Reuters reported exclusively in August that Sands allowed a man identified by the U.S. Senate as an organized crime figure to move a $100,000 gambling credit from a Las Vegas casino to one of its Macau casinos.
The company’s findings are related to deals in mainland China led by executives no longer employed at Sands, the Wall Street Journal reported, sourcing a person familiar with the matter.
Sands, in the filing, said the issue would have no material impact on the company’s financial records and that it would not need to restate any past financial statements.
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By Matt Cantor 
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Home
