Saipan casino operator Imperial Pacific International Holdings (IPI) has offered a glimpse of the casino floor of its new permanent gaming venue.
On Tuesday, the Saipan Tribune reported having been briefed on the layout of IPI’s Imperial Pacific Resort, the unfinished permanent gaming venue that will replace IPI’s temporary casino Best Sunshine Live.
The permanent resort’s hotel and other non-gaming facilities aren’t expected to open until later this year at the earliest, but IPI’s marketing director David Largent gave the Saipan Chamber of Commerce a tour last week of the resort’s casino floor, which is still awaiting regulatory approval to open to the public.
Largent said the 140k-square-foot casino floor would feature 48 baccarat tables, most of which will be reserved for VIP clients. IPI is still building the resort’s dedicated VIP area, so for the moment the high-rollers will have to endure the humiliation of breathing the same oxygen as the proles low-rolling at the mass market tables.
The resort will also features six blackjack tables, plus two tables for Texas Hold ‘Em poker, with enough space reserved to expand to eight poker tables should demand prove sufficient. Roulette will get two tables, while sic bo and tai sai dice games will be allotted eight tables, along with an unspecified number of tables for “poker derivative carnival games” such as pai gow and Caribbean Stud (or Saipan Stud, as it will be referred to locally).
BLOOMBERG CONFUSES REVENUE AND TURNOVER
Meanwhile, IPI’s labor issues continue unabated. The FBI raided the offices of the IPI resort’s main contractor last month following a rash of workplace accidents, including the death of a Chinese national who fell from a scaffold.
The FBI reportedly discovered 189 other Chinese nationals employed by the contractor who’d been working illegally under expired tourist visas. On Monday, Bloomberg reported that the FBI discovered “a cabinet full of Chinese passports” linked to construction employees.
IPI has chafed at some of Bloomberg’s coverage of its operations, including unconfirmed reports that Best Sunshine’s outsized VIP success had attracted the attention of US financial watchdogs. When Bloomberg repeated these allegations following the FBI raids, IPI said it planned to “take formal legal actions” against Bloomberg’s “repeated unfounded report.”
IPI never specified precisely what aspects of Bloomberg’s coverage got the company so hot under the collar, but an interview with Bloomberg reporter Stephen Engle that was broadcast on Monday did contain at least one demonstrably false claim.
During the interview, Engle referred to Best Sunshine earning “nearly $3b in revenue in March alone.” For the record, Best Sunshine reported $2.96b in gambling TURNOVER in March. Given the theoretical VIP win rate of just under 3%, had Best Sunshine actually earned $3b in revenue, it would have meant VIPs gambled around $100b in a single month. Then again, March did have 31 whole days, so you know, it’s longer than some other months…
