Monday afternoon, the Philippines House Committee on Games and Amusements approved a motion to ban American gambling tycoon Steve Wynn from opening any gaming operations in the Philippines. The move is another chapter in the heated boardroom battle between Wynn and former Wynn board member and head of Japanese pachinko giant Universal Entertainment, Kazuo Okada.
Last week Steve Wynn unilaterally removed Okada from the board of Wynn Resorts and Wynn Macau and filed a lawsuit in Las Vegas claiming that Okada had bribed Asian gaming officials. PAGCOR chairman Cristino L. Naguiat Jr. was extended the courtesy of a room while staying at the Wynn Macau back in September 2010. Both Okada and Naguiat Jr. have both refuted the charges as nothing more than standard business practise.
PAGCOR who act as both operators and regulators in the Philippines have decided to stand by Okada in the latest round of Wynn bully tactics. They must see Wynn’s shameless attempt to remove Okada from the Wynn board as nothing more than a stock grab; Wynn is paying $1.9B for Okada’s $2.7B stake. Along with the stock, Wynn’s attack on Okada could be his way of trying to gain an upper hand with the Japanese official who will be deciding on Casino developments in the near future.
The vote to ban Wynn from opening gambling operations in the fast-growing Philippine market should sting a little now but could leave him pleading for mercy in the coming years. PAGCOR has big plans for the Philippines gambling market as they have set their sights squarely on being the number one gambling destination in the region. They are on pace to usurp Las Vegas soon. After PAGCOR’s multi-billion dollar Entertainment City opens in 2015, Macau and Singapore could be looking up at a new number one in Asia.
Wynn’s ban in the Philippines isn’t the only bad news for the Vegas tycoon. As we reported yesterday, the Macau Junket operators who are so integral to Wynn’s Macau success are souring on Wynn’s short sighted Western views of the Asian gambling market.
Wynn’s “take-no-prisoners” style may work in the US and in the short term in Macau but it will come back to bite him over the long term. If he fails to adjust his trigger happy ways, Wynn could be in for a sharp decline. As Bodog88 CEO Robert Gustafsson said in a past interview, “So many westerners come here with the intention of showing these people how it’s done only to fail miserably…to succeed here, you need to be humble and understand that other than Bodog style branding we can’t teach them anything but they can teach us everything.” Humility is not a term that Steve Wynn wears well.
