Casino Enterprise Management

Now that we are in the post-G2E time period, we at CEM are hearing various assessments of the health of the gambling business. This happens throughout the year, but it always intensifies after the gaming industry’s largest trade event, G2E. These opinions can and do run the gamut, but the most vociferous groups are polar opposites.

I was watching the opening of the Democratic National Convention last month as the U.S. debt clock ticked past $16 trillion. Wow, now that’s serious irony! It must take a REALLY big transaction register for that checkbook to get balanced right—I mean, it’s like 12 flipping zeros not including the change under a dollar part.

Politics can be a touchy subject—a lot like religion, in that you will undoubtedly find folks who don’t, and won’t, see eye to eye with you and who have strong feelings about it. Personal preference is an interesting thing. The gaming industry is just one industry of many that has been beat up and bloodied by the economy over the past five years.

Summer is officially here, and though the heat has been sweltering—even up in Fargo, N.D.—it also means that OIGA is coming up very soon, and G2E won’t be far behind it. As we are preparing for the annual Oklahoma Indian Gaming Association trade show, it brings to mind many exciting things occurring both in Indian country and in the industry as a whole.

Over the last 41 months, the Obama administration has added more than 100 massive federal regulations, costing business and industry an estimated $1.75 trillion a year to comply with federal regulations. Though Obama preaches regulatory reform, there are right now, hundreds of new regulations in the pipeline and literally no end to regulatory expansion in sight.

I suppose recovery is something that’s in the eye of the beholder, but I’m looking for one specific indicator to change before I’m willing to say recovery, and that’s the national unemployment rate falling below 6 percent. Looking back at unemployment rates historically, there is a very strong correlation between a healthy economy and 6 percent or less unemployment.

Last year, gaming revenues in Macau surpassed $33.5 billion, and analysts are predicting 2012 will show a revenue increase of 22 percent over the previous year. That’s a lot of happy smackers, and the crazy growth there is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. Why can't we experience that here in the states? And what makes the economy of mainland China so relevant to the gaming markets of Asia?

It’s been more than 20 years now—1988 to be precise—since Las Vegas-style gaming on tribal government land was given an acid test to determine its legality. Knowing full well that the precedent setting outcome would open up the flood gates with other tribal governments wanting to exercise their right to engage in this new and potentially lucrative business, Congress went into hyper drive passing the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA).

The North American casino business just doesn’t seem to be able to catch a break lately, with gasoline averaging $3.50 a gallon around the country and reports of it quite likely heading north of $5 a gallon by spring. That type of thing has a direct effect on all the variables; the economy is dependent upon such as cost of transportation, home heating, producing and delivering goods and services, the cost of the food we eat and the creation of jobs.

Well it ain’t a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer. It’s something a lot more magical that that. After facing three-plus long years of devastating hardship in the gaming economy, the fiery engines of American capitalism have done just what they are designed to do: Seek out a way to let growth and prosperity flourish. And while I can’t bring myself to be thankful for the difficult economy, I can say I’m thankful that a new attitude about it has emerged as a result.