Steve Wynn gets the high hat in Massachusetts

I vacation in Las Vegas, but I live in Boston, and I follow the developing casino business here pretty closely.  I don't pretend to know a hell of a lot about the business itself, but I find the whole process pretty interesting.

It's all over the news today ( Boston Globe, for one) that, after the anti-casino folks in Foxboro voted for a new board of selectmen, Steve Wynn and Bob Kraft gave up their plans for a resort-casino in that town.  I was pretty sure it was dead on arrival the first time I heard about.  OK, I'm not Nostradamus, anyone who knows that area could have figured it out pretty quick, but it's an interesting story for a few reasons.

Steve Wynn has made it pretty clear that his company is looking towards Asia for growth.  As far as I know, he has never tried to build a casino anywhere in the U.S. outside of his base properties in LV.  This shows that the eastern Massachusetts casino (there will be only one license issued in eastern MA) is a big prize, bigger than a lot of people seem to think.

The only other candidate for a license in eastern MA is Suffolk Downs, which is partnered with Caesars. I go up there to play the horses once in a while in the summer.  It's a nice spot, has plenty of land, and is on the subway line.  More importantly, the Suffolk Downs folks have the political clout to get the license.  This is Boston, this is Massachusetts, politics mean a lot.

This is good news for me.  If Suffolk gets the casino, it's a subway ride for me.  I can throw back a (comped) drink or two and not worry about driving home.  If its a Caesars property, I can build up my players club points for my trips out to the desert. 

Random thought: One thing I haven't seen anywhere in all the coverage is international visitors.  I see casino's popping up all over the country, but Boston will be the first international city to have one (as far as I can tell).  I can't imagine anyone flying from Frankfort to Cleveland to play craps, but I can't walk six steps in Boston without running into someone with an accent.  They will still come to see the city, but I'm guessing many of them will spring for a subway ride up to the casino as well. 
Boston also just started direct flights to Tokyo.  I just find it interesting.

Boy, this is fun to watch.

Is the old Sahara being rebuilt?

A while ago, there were a few articles noting that the owner of the old Sahara was looking for money to redevelop the place.  Yeah, right, I thought - who's going to throw millions at rebuilding the Sahara, smackdab in the fading wasteland of the north strip?

Maybe I was wrong.  Maybe.  I stumbled on an article in Bloomberg a while ago that the money is there, and the redo is on.  Vegaschatter has written quite a bit about it too, as has Two Way Hard Three and a bunch of other blogs.

I'm terribly sceptical by nature, so I'll believe it when I see cranes and trucks at the site.  Personally, I hope it's for real.  While the north end of the strip is pretty barren in spots, I don't think it's so far gone (yet) that it can't come back, and I'm not such a jerk that I'm trying to put a downer on a project that will bring jobs to LV. So I really hope it's true.

The cynic in me, however, keeps thinking of the "redo" that was promised (a few times) at the old Lady Luck, which still sits empty, ugly, and depressing downtown.