Inside Asian Gaming

AUGUST 2018 INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 27 IN FOCUS obligations are fulfilled. This is a broad area, but generally includes ensuring obligations in licenses and agreements/contracts are met. Examples include obligations to build non-gaming offerings – hotels, theaters, MICE, et cetera – and commitments to maintaining a particular standard, a world-class facility, for example.” Cohen notes that Australia’s state of Victoria, where he was executive commissioner and CEO of the gaming regulator, amended its Casino Control Act to separate regulators’ integrity and taxation oversight from the commercial element. “However, this sophistry could only go so far – the regulator was a creature of the same piece of legislation so nevertheless had to work with an Act which, in some regards, had been made schizophrenic.” NO PRESSURE, BUT... In CNMI, the Casino Commission is currently trying to prod Saipan licensee IPI to complete construction of the beachfront casino hotel first scheduled to open early last year. IPI says it needs a second extension, and sources say it may be still be more than a year from completion. At the Commission’s June meeting, IPI said it needed an extension but couldn’t say for how long and needed more time to complete a formal request. Local media quoted DeLeon Guerrero telling IPI’s representative, “Every meeting that we have, we impress upon the need for IPI to identify how much more time they need because August is right around the corner. I don’t think we should be putting this pressure upon IPI so you understand what needed to be done, but I think we need to know who is going to make the decision so we can direct our inquiry to that person to say what are you waiting for?” “There seems to be an absence of appropriate sanction powers or an unwillingness to use those that are available,” Green says. “Who is actually upholding the public interest in ensuring that the company is held to proper account? It clearly isn’t the regulator, but it may not be vested with the power to do more than it is currently. Clearly the CNMI government has a huge investment of political capital in the project. In retrospect, it’s probably a great reason not to have a monopoly [because] there is no fallback.” “The bottom line is that this project will define Saipan tourism for years to come and bring Chinese gamblers to America frequently where they might have been paying taxes in Macau or elsewhere,” Imperial Pacific Saipan architect and designer Paul Steelman says, voicing a US perspective. “Everyone should be rooting for it to succeed.” The lobby at Imperial Pacific Resort