An item on Macau from Bloomberg News way back in August 2007 caught the eyes of the hard-working elves here at Asian Gaming Intelligence.
In the online article, Sheldon Adelson, Chairman and Chief Executive of Las Vegas Sands Corp., was quoted as criticising his Las Vegas rival Steve Wynn for being too cautious in his Macau development plans.
“Competitors and venues should work to bring people to destinations and then fight over them later, but Steve doesn’t think so,” Mr Adelson said in the interview.
“We think it’s a big mistake,” William Weidner, then President and Chief Operating Officer of LVS added, in his own commentary on Mr Wynn’s strategy.
“We’ll build more and more and more,” said Mr Weidner at the time.
The Chinese government had imposed new visa rules because it was “disappointed” at the quality of some casinos being built in the city, Mr Weidner added.
“The Chinese government cannot be proud of its Special Administrative Region when some of these cheap little buildings that are makeovers with bubble gum and spray paint are coming into the market,” he continued, warming to his theme.
Smaller and older casinos “will not survive. They can’t survive,” said Mr Weidner.
Well it turns out the so-called ‘cheap’ casinos may not be such a bad investment after all, even if Mr Weidner is no longer here to see it.
At the time Mr Wynn declined to comment on the wisdom of his own strategy. We bet he wouldn’t mind commenting now.
