Inside Asian Gaming

JAN 2019 INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 27 “We do exclusively regional casinos and I must say that if someone here wants a Las Vegas or Macau type IR, we wouldn’t be doing that. We don’t think it fits into the culture or the environment of Hokkaido or Tomakomai.” – Neil Bluhm Andrew W Scott: Thanks for speaking with us Neil. First of all, can you tell us a bit about Rush Street? Neil Bluhm: We’re principally, originally in the real estate development business. We have developed and invested in some US$60 billion worth of prime real estate. For example we have developed most of Century City in Los Angeles, in Chicago the Mercantile Exchange, many Four Seasons hotels and Ritz-Carlton hotels, so we’re used to developing very high quality real estate. About 20 years ago we got involved in casino development. Our first project was in Niagara Falls in Canada where we developed a US$1 billion project for the government of Ontario. Actually, any casino in Ontario by law has to be owned by the government but they needed someone to build it and run it, so they picked us in an RFP. After that we started doing projects in the United States but only regional casinos, nothing in Macau or in Las Vegas, but in regional cities. We have the only casino in Cook County in Chicago, the only casino in the city of Philadelphia, the only casino in the city of Pittsburgh and are one of four casino licenses that were awarded in upstate New York. We won the license in the capital region where Albany and some other cities are. The regional casinos are totally different from building in Las Vegas or Macau because we go into a city that has never had a casino in that city, so we have to make sure that what we develop is something that is acceptable to the local community. We have to deal with all of the concerns that people have over whether they really want gaming in their city, is it going to create crime, problem gambling, will it fit into the feel of the city – that’s what we specialize in. Doing something in Tomakomai, Hokkaido fits right into what we do so that’s why we’ve set our sights on Hokkaido and Tomakomai. AWS: So there is no interest in any other regional locations in Japan? NB: Our only interest right now is Tomakomai. We’re putting all of our efforts there. Somebody asked me, ‘What would happen if Hokkaido decided they didn’t want an integrated resort?’ Well if that were the case we’d have to reconsider some other locations but right now we’re just focusing on Tomakomai. AWS: How do you feel about the likelihood of needing to be part of a consortia with local partners? NB: Well we are used to doing projects with local partners. That’s true in virtually everything we’ve developed. In New York, the land owner contributed the land and owns 9.9% of the project (Rivers Casino and Resort). In Philadelphia we have local partners too so we have no problem partnering up with people and we expect to be part of a consortium in Tomakomai. I can’t comment on what percentage we would own. It could be a majority or it could be a minority interest. That might depend on how much local interest there is in that connection – there may be more interest in the major cities like Tokyo, Osaka or Yokohama. Some of the huge Japanese companies may have less interest in a smaller regional project. But we certainly welcome good partners as long as they are suitable partners and can be approved by the gaming board. We’re used to strict regulation in the United States where we have a very successful casino business and we certainly wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize that by partnering up with anyone who didn’t meet our very high standards.