As they say, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. According to Jon Ralston on his website RalstonReports.com, Steve Wynn is now opposed to the legalization and regulation of online gambling. This would be news in and of itself, but adding to the interest is that he was swayed to his new point of view by his long-time enemy, Las Vegas Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson.
As most of you know, Sheldon Adelson is online gambling’s Public Enemy Number One, committed to spending millions upon millions of dollars to make sure it doesn’t get legalized on the federal level and to slow or stop its progress on the state level. He is even behind a draft of a bill that would redefine the Wire Act of 1961 to outlaw all internet gaming.
Steve Wynn, though, had been at least neutral on the idea, while at the same time positioning his company to take advantage of legalization. In September 2013, his company, Wynn Resorts, entered into an agreement with 888 Holdings to have 888 develop Wynn’s online poker offering. The eventual site would then join 888’s All American Poker Network. At the same time, Wynn inked a separate deal with Caesars that would have Caesars use one of its Atlantic City casinos to house Wynn’s online gaming servers if and when Wynn was ready to get its online poker business up and running in Nevada.
But now, according to a conversation Jon Ralston had with Steve Wynn, the casino mogul is in Adelson’s camp. One of his reasons is one to which Adelson has yet to admit: it’s all about the money. “This is not a good entrepreneurial opportunity,” he told Ralston. “Where is the business opportunity? The big problem I see is I don’t see the government letting us keep the money.”
What exactly he means by “letting us keep the money” is unclear as obviously the gaming firms keep the bulk of their online revenues while handing over some of it to the government.
He did address one of the usual concerns, underage gambling, agreeing with Adelson that it doesn’t appear possible (in their opinion) to stop children and teenagers from partaking in online gaming.
Wynn was also honest, whether one agrees with him or not, in his thoughts that online gambling could hurt his company and Las Vegas. He said online gambling is just not in his wheelhouse, admitting, “I know how to do that (develop physical properties), but I don’t know how to do that on a 17-inch screen.”
As for its effect on Las Vegas, he didn’t really explain how it would hurt the city, though he implied that gaming revenue would move away from Vegas casinos and into online casinos. He then told Ralston that it is Macau that has really helped the Vegas properties, as both he and Adelson have made tons of money from their business in the China enclave, money that has come back to Vegas to be used to hire new employees and refurbish properties. And he’s not kidding about Macau’s financial impact: sales in Macau were $1.12 billion in the fourth quarter of 2013, comprising 74 percent of his company’s total revenue. What all of this has to do with online gambling in the U.S. was not explained.
To his credit, Steve Wynn did say his mind could still be changed, whereas Adelson is more entrenched in his viewpoint than the Sword in the Stone.