Inside Asian Gaming

inside asian gaming December 2016 32 The improving economic fortunes of the casino industry were reflected in overall CEO compensation, according to AETHOS Consulting Group and its annual report on gaming executive salaries. Paying to the base T he gaming industry is a dichotomy of large and small. At one end of the spectrum is Las Vegas Sands Corporation (LVS) with a market cap of US$45 billion, while at the other end is Gamehost, with a market cap of US$20 million. Comparing industry behemoths to micro-caps is a difficult task at best, especially when it comes to executive pay. Compensation committees are challenged with determining executive pay for CEOs in the face of heavy shareholder and government scrutiny. The challenge is finding relevant comparable data. For example, should Sheldon Adelson of LVS and Steve Wynn of Wynn Resorts be compared to smaller operators such as David Will of Gamehost and Dennis McGlynn of Dover Downs Entertainment when it comes to pay? In most cases, comparable data is garnered from other, similar- sized companies, regardless of industry. In an effort to analyze executive pay in the gaming industry, AETHOS Consulting Group has developed a proprietary pay-for- performance model that allows for the comparison of disparate data points to determine if a pay package was too large or small. In our Features By Keith Kefgen , AETHOS Consulting Group