When discussing a Macau tourist tax, it’s starting to look less like a question of if it will happen, and more like when. The Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) have launched a new survey on their website, and announced it in a press release.

The survey, which Macau residents can access via a QR code, will run from May 20 until June 20. It asks how citizens think the proceeds of a tourist tax should be spent, if one is implemented. In the release, they noted that the answer they receive “will become a significant consideration in the study.”

Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, head of the MGTO, told reporters on May 21 that the government still hasn’t settled on a tax, reports GGRAsia. “We are still collecting opinions,” she said. “There are different ideas, different opinions.”

The survey looks like it might play into the final decision of if a tax should be implemented as well. The release noted:

Churchill Downs can be the poster boy for the affects of easy money on capital markets. Shareholders have made a killing while the board has kept buying back shares and buying more growth with cheap debt. For a decade now, the stock has followed the broader market, accentuating the up moves while stalling during pullbacks. Generally favorable business conditions in regional markets have also helped as Churchill Downs has beefed up its numbers and keeps breaking its own records. But, the picture is just now getting a bit more wobbly.

Since this is a momentum stock, it needs momentum to continue higher. Otherwise it falls. The last stall from late 2015 to early 2017 lasted a year and a half before the uptrend was reestablished. We are now exactly one year into the most recent consolidation. The next few months then should be telling. If the U.S. economy is going to boom for another year, then Churchill Downs could see one last leg higher. If not, we could eventually fall back down to the $50 area, the jumping off point of the previous rally. This is not a stock that is just going to relax and trend slowly higher. It’s either going much higher, or much lower.

If we look into its growth strategy, we can see pretty clearly what’s happened here, and how easy money affects stock prices. Since 2014, Churchill Downs has bought back nearly $1 billion in stock, about a quarter of its market cap. $938.8 million to be exact (page 36 here). Since 2014, its market cap has grown by $1.18 billion. 80% of that move, then, was just money that it plowed back into its own stock year after year as it became more and more expensive. Where did this $938.8 million come from? Well, $711 million of it came from an increase in its debt holdings since 2014. It basically borrowed money to buy its own stock back. This doesn’t even include the additional $243 million that the board has set aside for further repurchases down the road. If we add that in, total stock buybacks executed and authorized equals $1.18 billion since 2014, the exact increase in its market cap since that year. If traders are front-running these stock repurchases, then that fuel is exhausted, unless still more is soon authorized.

You can try to point to growth statistics to justify Churchill’s meteoric rise, and growth has at least something to do with it. But much of its growth though has been through acquisitions. Without further acquisitions then, growth is going to slow down. The stock’s current price is the result of a combination of its very generous buybacks, plus top line acquisition-fueled growth. If both of those are not sustained at current rates, the stock is going to have to fall. At this point, with debt becoming substantial and nearing $1.5 billion, it’s going to have to slow down and take a step back and consolidate its new holdings. At the very least this should put capital growth on hold, with some scary falls during broader market stress.

On May 20, it was announced that Filinvest would be pouring $200 million into their integrated casino resort in Clark City in the Philippines. This money will be invested as part of a provisional license that was granted by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (PAGCOR) for the Casino and resort operation that is part of Filinvest Development Corporation (FDC).

The $200 million will be used toward an elaborate project. This will include a casino, a five-star hotel, a multi-purpose venue for events, even a mall. This appears to be part of an overall strategy for Filinvest that they have been looking to employ since receiving the provisional license in April 2018.

Working with the PAGCOR, the intention was to build such an elaborate project that it would attract foreign tourists to the Philippines. Positioned close to the airport, FDC president and CEO L. Josephine Yap envisioned that this project would be one that would attract tourists from both inside the Philippines and across Southeast Asia and into Oceana.

At the time the provisional licensure was granted, Yap explained:

International Game Technology Plc (IGT) has released its financials for the first quarter of 2019 and, as has been seen with a lot of gaming companies recently, there is some good news and some bad news. Profits are up year-on-year, but revenues are down.

NYSE-listed IGT announced its results yesterday in London and specified that it had picked up a net profit of $40.3 million for the quarter. This was a substantial increase over the $103.2 million it lost in the first quarter of last year. However, revenue dipped 5%, falling from $1.21 billion to $1.14 billion year-on-year.

EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) dropped, as well in the quarter. Dropping 4%, it sunk to $416.67 million, compared to the $436.16 million IGT reported for the same period last year.

According to IGT CEO Marco Sala, in a prepared statement submitted with the earnings report, “Our first quarter results confirm the consistent growth profile of our global lottery business and the progress we’ve made in sales of gaming machines.”

Tomorrow, the Nevada Gaming Commission (NGC) will meet to discuss some extremely important subjects for the state’s gaming industry. It has been a chaotic time for the board and it almost didn’t have the full complement of members needed to be effective. The NGC was saved at the last minute, thanks to Governor Steve Sisolak, and the months-long game of musical chairs may finally have stopped the music for the last time.

Sisolak appointed Steven Cohen to the commission last Friday. Cohen is a well-known, respected Las Vegas attorney and a founding partner of the Cohen Johnson law firm. The board has been undermanned since this past January and Cohen was chosen to be a part of the group after Philip Pro announced in April that he would not seek another four-year appointment.

Sisolak took a member of the board away in January when he tapped then-Commission Sandra Morgan to manage Nevada’s Gaming Control Board (GCB). Down to four, the departure of Pro reduced the board to just three.

At the end of April, Sisolak brought in Rosa Solis-Rainey, an attorney who had worked as a clerk for Pro when was serving as a US District Court judge. With Cohen now onboard, the five-member panel can get busy and tackle some serious issues.

The Walt Disney Company had tried to keep Florida’s gambling industry under the thumb of lawmakers because it is a family-friendly company that doesn’t believe wagers fits in with its business model. However, it seems to be loosening its position on gambling – to some degree, at least – because it has now purchased a stake in a major sportsbook and daily fantasy sports (DFS) operator. Disney is now the proud owner of a piece of DraftKings.

The flip-flop is interesting. It was only three months ago that the company’s CEO, Bob Iger, told investors in a quarterly earnings call, “I don’t see The Walt Disney Company, certainly in the near term, getting involved in the business of gambling, in effect, by facilitating gambling in any way.”

Disney owns ESPN, which has started taking a larger interest in DFS and sports gambling, so any entry into the industry on the part of the sports network would make sense. However, Disney has maintained its distance from the activity and, in fact, hasn’t even commented on its DraftKings investment.

To be fair to Disney, it didn’t go out searching to invest in a sports gambling platform, at least not this time. The company recently merged with 21st Century Fox in a deal worth $71.3 billion, and Fox had previously held a stake in DraftKings. The company had invested $160 million in the platform three years ago, and the sportsbook has now become the largest in the country with an estimated value of around $1.5 billion.

When the Lucky Dragon was conceived as a future part of the Las Vegas landscape, it was designed with a very specific mission – to attract Asian gamblers. In order to help realize the dream, its developers went after Asian whales, promising residency in the US in return for sizeable investments through the country’s EB-5 visa program. Soon after its grand opening in 2016, it became obvious that the dragon was never going to roar and was forced out into the distant fields where casino dragons go to die. Unfortunately for those investors, they didn’t receive their residency or their investments and are now going after the developers to try to recuperate their funds.

The Lucky Dragon was forced into foreclosure and seized by Snow Covered Capital, its primary creditor, last year. After several failed attempts at finding a new owner, the venue finally found someone willing to purchase the property last month. It sold for just $36 million – pennies against the $160 million the casino cost to build and not enough to cover the amount that is still due the investment company.

The investors had to put up at least $550,000 in order to qualify for residency under the EB-5 program. 40 of them are now suing, arguing that the developers “fraudulently induced” the investments out of them.

The developers are looking at another lawsuit in addition to the investors’ suit. A high-rolling gambler and casino investor out of British Columbia, Jason Chen, is suing to recuperate a $400,000 deposit he had given to lease the casino only a month before it permanently shut off the lights. The lawsuit targets Andrew Fonfa of ASF Realty & Investments, one of the principle investors, who led “coordinated efforts” to obtain funds through “deceit and misrepresentation.” Fonfa acted as the Lucky Dragon’s chief financial officer and general manager when the venue first opened.

Macau’s tourism agency wants to make the city more than just one of the most successful gambling towns in the world. It is rolling out a plan that will include the development of more non-gaming and family-friendly activities in order to attract a more diverse tourism segment and part of that plan has come to life. The city’s popular Fisherman’s Wharf is getting its own virtual reality (VR) zone.

Launched through a partnership between Macau Fisherman’s Wharf and Japan-based Bandai Namco, the hot spot’s new VR Zone should officially launch this fall. It will be the first of its kind in the region and will help boost local entertainment options beyond gambling. Fisherman’s Wharf is home to Legend Palace and Babylon Casino.

The VR Zone will offer options for both children and adults, and Bandai Namco will also be launching a branded store on the site. The president of Macau Fisherman’s Wharf International Investment Limited (FWIIL), Melinda Chan Mei Yi, adds, “Since Macau is a tourist destination and our government wants to diversify our economy and build more non-gaming industries, this is something that Macau Fisherman’s Wharf wanted to establish.”

There are other projects being worked on for inclusion in Fisherman’s Wharf, as well. A restaurant with three Michelin stars will be coming to Legend Palace’s hotel this year and a dinosaur museum and meetings and conference center will most likely be ready to open sometime in 2020.

Ohio is close to legalizing sports gambling, but close doesn’t quite cut it. Whether a bill is two steps, or five, away from being signed into law, it still isn’t law. Disputes can happen at any turn, forcing any subject to a grinding halt. This is essentially where Ohio is now, with lawmakers unable to reach a consensus on several points. Sports gambling most likely won’t come to Ohio this year.

The General Assembly is considering two bills – one each from the House and the Senate. House Bill 194 (HB 194) and Senate Bill 111 (SB 111) each have their merits and are similar in a lot of ways, but the two chambers differ on a number of points in the legislation, including who will regulate the sports gambling industry.

The House bill has the Ohio Lottery Commission would regulate an industry that could contain as many as 1,000 sportsbooks across the state. The Senate bill, on the other hand, wants the activity to be controlled by the Ohio Casino Control Commission (OCCC). The Senate argues that the commission has the experience and expertise to control the activity and would want sports wagers to be available only at the 11 casinos and racinos licensed in the state.

SB 111 also allows mobile sports betting websites, which could prove to be powerful for gambling lobby groups. The bill establishes policies that require separate and secure sportsbooks at the casinos, with the activity being closely monitored by the OCCC.