Thursday, March 29, 2012

In a suit filed Monday, Steve Wynn's former business partner Kazuo Okada fired back atWynn Resorts Ltd., portraying his ouster last month as a major shareholder in the casino giant as a scheme designed to defraud him and forcibly take control of his stake in the company.

Accusing Mr. Wynn of running publicly traded Wynn Resorts as a "personal fiefdom," Mr. Okada in his suit alleged that Mr. Wynn and company executives, lawyers, financial advisers, investigators and board members had helped enable the company to commit securities fraud and other violations in a rush to judgment against Mr. Okada.

Wynn Resorts didn't immediately respond to requests for comment following the filing.

The suit, filed in U.S. district court in Nevada, escalates a war between the two men that could expose one of the most successful casino operators in the world to extended litigation.

Earlier

The Unraveling of a Casino Marriage

Wynn Resorts has said it was forced to move against Mr. Okada because his involvement in the company could threaten its licenses to operate casinos because, it alleged, he had participated in illegal activities.

Last month, Wynn Resorts declared that in an investigation the board alleged Mr. Okada had made inappropriate payments to public officials and was "unsuitable" to continue to be a shareholder in Wynn Resorts. The company said it could be at risk under Nevada law if it continued to allow Mr. Okada to hold shares.

The company forcibly redeemed Mr. Okada's shares for 30% less than the market value when they redeemed them. That amount won't be paid to him for 10 years.

The company says that was necessary under its articles of incorporation and Nevada casino laws.

On the same day that he filed the lawsuit, Mr. Okada appeared in a video posted on the website of his company, Universal Entertainment Corp., forcibly speaking out against the allegations by Wynn Resorts. He apologized for "causing any anxiety" to his Universal investors and employees and people related to a casino project in the Philippines that has been in the cross fires of the dispute.

"Steve Wynn's fundamental purpose is to retain absolute control over Wynn Resorts and to enrich himself," Mr. Okada said in the video. "To accomplish this he tried to remove the largest shareholder in Wynn Resorts."

Mr. Okada said the board's conclusion that he is unsuitable is "wrong."

"It was based on incomplete information and hearsay and based on an unfair process," he said. "We have never done anything improper for the purpose of receiving…government benefits."

Wynn Resorts filed a lawsuit last month in a Nevada district court that accused Mr. Okada of breeching his fiduciary duties as board member by planning a casino in the Philippines that competed against the company for Chinese gamblers and engaging in illegal activities, among other claims.

Mr. Wynn and other investors' stake in the company was boosted after Mr. Okada was forcibly ousted, but investors have been bracing for the countersuit by Mr. Okada.

On Monday, Mr. Okada made a motion to move the lawsuit to federal court.

In the countersuit, Mr. Okada said the company hadn't given him a proper chance to exonerate himself before finding him unsuitable. Many of the company's allegations against him changed over time, he said, adding to the notion that it was seeking to oust him without fair judgment, Mr. Okada said.

"The entire process was tainted by the desire to serve Mr. Wynn's pretextual goals of removing Aruze USA, [Mr. Okada's company], as the largest single shareholder of the company, silencing Mr. Okada and consolidating and maintaining Mr. Wynn's control over Wynn Resorts," the lawsuit states.

Among the charges Mr. Okada lobbed in his complaint are that the company could have engaged in securities violations and racketeering in its process to redeem Mr. Okada's stake, in a rush to cash him out before the company wins a Macau casino license and the stock price rises.

In addition, Mr. Okada says the company made a false promise to lend him money in order to induce him to agree to allow Mr. Wynn's ex-wife to sell shares in the company.

Mr. Okada asked the federal court to reverse the shares redemption because, he said, Mr. Okada's stock agreement with Mr. Wynn prevents the company from taking his shares.

Mr. Okada also questioned the legality of the provision in its articles of incorporation that allows the board—and not just a law enforcement agency or gambling regulator—to determine Mr. Okada unfit and redeem his shares.

Further, Mr. Okada argued that the redemption note the company made for Mr. Okada's stock—$1.9 billion, a 30% discount on the price of his shares—is invalid because it was determined by a financial adviser, Moelis & Co., that has a long history of doing business with Wynn Resorts.

"Wynn Directors' finding that there was a likely jeopardy to Wynn Resorts' gaming license lacked a sound foundation and was made without a thorough and complete review of relevant law, fact and evidence," the lawsuit states.

In the filing, Mr. Okada also added more details around his concerns about a promise by Wynn Resorts to donate $135 million to a foundation connected to a university in Macau. In the past, noting that the university sits on government land, he has said there was no discussion among board members of whether the large gift was an "appropriate use of corporate funds."

The company disclosed an investigation related to the donation by the Securities and Exchange Commission not long after. At the time, the company said Mr. Okada's concerns were due to the length of time the donation was to cover—12 years. The company said it had had lawyers review the donation to make sure it complied with U.S. antibribery laws.

In his complaint Monday, Mr. Okada said board members didn't receive a legal opinion sanctioning the donation.

In the lawsuit, Mr. Okada accused Mr. Wynn of misleading the board "by securing its consent to the donation, without disclosing his personal knowledge of the close connection between University of Macau and officials responsible for regulatory decisions related to Wynn Macau's gaming operations." He said he was concerned, since the donation was coming as Wynn was waiting for approvals from the Macau government to develop a new casino, it might appear "that Wynn Macau and Wynn Resorts were paying for benefits."

Wynn Resorts denies any wrongdoing regarding the Macau donation.

The suit names Mr. Wynn, company executives and directors as defendants.

Write to Alexandra Berzon at alexandra.berzon@wsj.com

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Las Vegas Strip Gambling Revenue Rises 29% - Bloomberg

10 States Mull Online Gambling Legalization | Articles | Vending Features | Vending Times Inc.

GAMBLING: Two pending state bills toss the dice | Breaking News | PE.com - Press-Enterprise

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Florida’s tribal casinos grew revenue by 1% in 2010, report says - Business - MiamiHerald.com

When Gaming Is Good for You

By ROBERT LEE HOTZ

Videogames can change a person's brain and, as researchers are finding, often that change is for the better.

Love them or hate them, online videogames are a treasure trove for researchers who are studying how all those keyboard taps, mouse clicks and joystick moves may affect behavior, perception and even cognitive skills. WSJ's Robert Lee Hotz reports.

A growing body of university research suggests that gaming improves creativity, decision-making and perception. The specific benefits are wide ranging, from improved hand-eye coordination in surgeons to vision changes that boost night driving ability.

People who played action-based video and computer games made decisions 25% faster than others without sacrificing accuracy, according to a study. Indeed, the most adept gamers can make choices and act on them up to six times a second—four times faster than most people, other researchers found. Moreover, practiced game players can pay attention to more than six things at once without getting confused, compared with the four that someone can normally keep in mind, said University of Rochester researchers. The studies were conducted independently of the companies that sell video and computer games.

View Interactive

(clockwise from top left) Rockstar Games; Take -Two; Blizzard Entertainment; Activision; Electronic Arts; Blizzard Entertainment; Eli Meir Kaplan for the Wall Street Journal (cyclist)

Scientists also found that women—who make up about 42% of computer and videogame players—were better able to mentally manipulate 3D objects, a skill at which men are generally more adept. Most studies looked at adults rather than children.

Electronic gameplay has its downside. Brain scans show that violent videogames can alter brain function in healthy young men after just a week of play, depressing activity among regions associated with emotional control, researchers at Indiana University recently reported. Other studies have found an association between compulsive gaming and being overweight, introverted and prone to depression. The studies didn't compare the benefits of gaming with such downsides.

The violent action games that often worry parents most had the strongest beneficial effect on the brain. "These are not the games you would think are mind-enhancing," said cognitive neuroscientist Daphne Bavelier, who studies the effect of action games at Switzerland's University of Geneva and the University of Rochester in New York.

Different Games' Effects on Your Brain

View Slideshow

[SB10001424052970203458604577263833346535656]

Blizzard Entertainment

Learn how different games do different things to your brain

Computer gaming has become a $25 billion-a year entertainment business behemoth since the first coin-operated commercial videogames hit the market 41 years ago. In 2010, gaming companies sold 257 million video and computer games, according to figures compiled by the industry's trade group, the Entertainment Software Association.

For scientists, the industry unintentionally launched a mass experiment in the neurobiology of learning. Millions of people have immersed themselves in the interactive reward conditioning of electronic game play, from Tetris, Angry Birds, and Farmville, to shooter games and multiplayer, role-playing fantasies such as League of Legend, which has been played 1 billion times or so in the two years since it was introduced.

"Videogames change your brain," said University of Wisconsin psychologist C. Shawn Green, who studies how electronic games affect abilities. So does learning to read, playing the piano, or navigating the streets of London, which have all been shown to change the brain's physical structure. The powerful combination of concentration and rewarding surges of neurotransmitters like dopamine strengthen neural circuits in much the same the way that exercise builds muscles. But "games definitely hit the reward system in a way that not all activities do," he said.

Recap

Cognitive scientist Mark Blair and Robert Lee Hotz answer readers' questions

"There has been a lot of attention wasted in figuring out whether these things turn us into killing machines," said computational analyst Joshua Lewis at the University of California in San Diego, who studied 2,000 computer game players. "Not enough attention has been paid to the unique and interesting features that videogames have outside of the violence."

Broadly speaking, today's average gamer is 34 years old and has been playing electronic games for 12 years, often up to 18 hours a week. By one analyst's calculation, the 11 million or so registered users of the online role-playing fantasy World of Warcraft collectively have spent as much time playing the game since its introduction in 2004 as humanity spent evolving as a species—about 50 billion hours of game time, which adds up to about 5.9 million years.

Games People Play

Top five video games in 2010 (by units sold)

1. Call of Duty: Black Ops

2. Madden NFL 11

3. Halo: Reach

4. New Super Mario Bros.

5. Red Dead Redemption

Top five computer games in 2010 (by units sold)

1. Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty

2. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Expansion Pack

3. The Sims 3

4. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Expansion Pack

5. Civilization V

Source: Entertainment Software Association, NPD Group

With people playing so many hundreds, if not thousands, of different games, though, university researchers have been hard-pressed to pinpoint the lasting effects on cognition and behavior.

Blizzard Entertainment Inc. in Irvine, Calif., which sells World of Warcraft, StarCraft II and other popular games, did not respond to queries about whether the company supports gaming research or conducts its own studies. Neither did RiotGames Inc. in Santa Monica, which markets League of Legends.

The vast majority of the research did not directly compare gaming with hours of other intense, mental activities such as solving math equations. Almost any computer game appears to boost a child's creativity, researchers at Michigan State University's Children and Technology Project reported in November.

A three-year study of 491 middle school students found that the more children played computer games the higher their scores on a standardized test of creativity—regardless of race, gender, or the kind of game played. The researchers ranked students on a widely used measure called the Torrance Test of Creativity, which involves such tasks as drawing an "interesting and exciting" picture from a curved shape on a sheet of paper, giving the picture a title, and then writing a story about it. The results were ranked by seven researchers for originality, length, and complexity on a standardized three-point scale for each factor, along with detailed questionnaires.

In contrast, using cellphones, the Internet, or computers for other purposes had no effect on creativity, they said.

Several new studies shed new light on how videogames affect the brain and behavior -- and it's not necessarily for the worse. A new study suggests videogames boost creativity in children and offer other neural benefits. Lee Hotz has details on Lunch Break.

"Much to my surprise, it didn't matter whether you were playing aggressive games or sport games, not a bit," said psychologist Linda Jackson, who led the federally funded study of 491 boys and girls at 20 Michigan schools.

Even so, researchers have yet to create educational software as engaging as most action games. Without such intense involvement, neural circuits won't change, they believe. "It happens that all the games that have the good learning effect happen to be violent. We don't know whether the violence is important or not," said Dr. Bavelier. "We hope not."

Until recently, most researchers studied the effects of gaming on small groups of volunteers, who learned to play under laboratory conditions. Some scientists now are turning the commercial games themselves into laboratories of learning.

In the largest public study of electronic gaming so far, Mark Blair at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia, is analyzing the behavior of 150,000 people who play the popular online game called StarCraft II, pulling together more than 1.5 billion data points of perception, attention, movement and second-by-second decision-making.

By analyzing so much game play, he hopes to learn how people become experts in an online world. That may shed light on how new knowledge and experience can become second nature, integrated into the way we react to the world around us.

Write to Robert Lee Hotz at sciencejournal@wsj.com

Monday, March 5, 2012

Vietnam Plans to Legalize Sports Gambling

By JAMES HOOKWAY And VU TRONG KHANH

Vietnam is emerging as the latest Asian nation to loosen a straight-laced attitude to gambling, with the Finance Ministry saying it plans to legalize sports betting.

The move, partly inspired by Singapore's success in reinventing itself as a casino hub in recent years, followed discussions about easing restrictions on gambling in other major markets, such as Japan, and underscored the speed with which the gambling world's center of gravity has shifted toward Asia.

Hanoi's Finance Ministry said Monday that legalizing and regulating betting on soccer matches and other sporting events would help limit the social damage caused by underground gambling syndicates. While Vietnam has only a handful of casinos, which only foreign-passport holders can enter, informal gambling on European soccer matches is widespread. Many Vietnamese also regularly cross the border to gamble at Cambodian casinos, a practice that Vietnam's Communist leaders long have viewed with distaste.

The recent success of the gambling industry in Singapore appears to be changing perceptions. Las Vegas Sands Corp.'s Marina Bay Sands and Genting Singapore PLC's Resorts World Sentosa opened in Singapore in 2010 after the government auctioned off licenses to operate in the wealthy city-state. The auction followed years of hesitation about the possible social impact of casinos. But the casinos have been a financial success, drawing large numbers of tourists without triggering widespread crime or other problems.

Singapore's success in creating family-oriented resorts has piqued the interest of investors and governments hoping to replicate that model in other parts of Southeast Asia.

Vietnamese Finance Minister Vuong Dinh Hue visited Singapore over the weekend to study how sports betting works there. The ministry said he met with executives from the Tote Board and Singapore Pools, government-run operators of sports betting in Singapore. Mr. Hue also visited a horse-racing track.

On his return to Vietnam, Mr. Hue said his country could learn from Singapore's example in setting up a legal and organizational framework for operating large-scale betting operations.

The Finance Ministry said it would draft legislation to submit to the prime minister for approval but didn't provide a time frame.

It was unclear whether Mr. Hue's more tolerant approach to sports betting signaled a broader shift among the country's top leadership in Vietnam to open its market to more casinos and other forms of gambling.

It also was unclear if private companies, including foreign investors, would be allowed into the sports-betting market, or if the business would be dominated by the Vietnamese government.

Government officials couldn't be reached.

U.S. casino operators view Asia as an important new growth market as their American operations continue to suffer the effects of the 2008 financial crisis. PricewaterhouseCoopers expects Asia to contribute 43% of the global casino market by 2015, up from 29% in 2010.

Vietnam could be one of several new gambling hubs, thanks to its population of around 90 million people and its growing appeal among foreign tourists. Las Vegas Sands Chief Executive Sheldon Adelson has said he was trying to encourage Vietnamese authorities to allow the company to build integrated casino-and-convention resorts in the country.

Other countries also appear to have been impressed by Singapore's success.

A group of Japanese lawmakers are discussing plans to submit a bill that would pave the way for casinos to open in the world's third-largest economy.

The Philippines also plans to use the gambling industry as a way to attract more tourists.

Write to James Hookway at james.hookway@wsj.com and Vu Trong Khanh at trong-khanh.vu@dowjones.com

Canada keeps online gambling in play

Friday, March 2, 2012

California Online Poker Bill Details

Loss Widens At Ceasars -- WSJ

By NATHALIE TADENA

Caesars Entertainment Corp.'s fourth-quarter loss widened because of higher interest expenses, though revenue increased at the casino operator's Las Vegas properties.

Caesars on Wednesday reported a loss of $220.6 million, or $1.76 a share, compared with a year-earlier loss of $196.7 million, or $1. Revenue rose 2.4% to $2.17 billion. The company's interest expenses increased 32%.

Now Reporting

Track the performances of 150 companies as they report and compare their results with analysts' estimates. Sort by date and industry.

More photos and interactive graphics

Twitter's Slow Road to IPO

Persuading People to Use Its Web Service is the Easy Part; Winning Over Advertisers is Proving Tricky

By SHIRA OVIDE and EMILY GLAZER

In just six years Twitter Inc. has become the world's digital soapbox, amassing more than 100 million monthly users—from everyday people to Lady Gaga to Middle East protesters—who use the service to spread pithy updates and breaking news.

Yet despite the service's growing influence on society and culture, the business behind it still has a ways to go until it's ready for an initial public offering.

Facebook and Yelp are going public, but Twitter still isn't ready. Its business remains too immature for an IPO, with advertisers still treating Twitter as an experiment. Shira Ovide has details on The News Hub. Photo: AFP/Getty Images

To understand why, travel to Cincinnati, where last June Twitter planted a staffer blocks from Procter & Gamble Co.'s headquarters and assigned him a critical task: Teach the country's biggest advertiser to use Twitter and buy its ads.

But when P&G spent $150 million to promote the launch last month of a Tide laundry detergent, the company bought magazine pages, billboard spots and television commercials during the Academy Awards—and no Twitter ads.

"All [P&G] brands are asking questions about what to do with Twitter and how to leverage it; nobody really had a clear, lean answer," said the staffer, J.B. Kropp.

The Next Wave of Tech IPOs

A P&G spokeswoman for Tide didn't specify why the company didn't buy any Twitter ads last month. Alex Tosolini, P&G's vice president of global e-business, noted separately that other brands such as Pantene, CoverGirl and Pampers have bought Twitter ads in the past.

Still, the consumer-goods company has no "formal" online-ad partnership with Twitter, as it does with companies such as Facebook Inc. and others, Mr. Tosolini said.

P&G's experience is emblematic of Twitter's challenges to win over advertisers—its predominant source of revenue—as it tries to refashion itself into a sustainable business worthy of its $8.4 billion valuation, based on a funding round in the company last year.

The company, whose members broadcast 140-character messages called tweets, spent most of its early life as a service that generated buzz but little revenue.

IPO: Go, No-Go?

Initial public offerings aren't always good investments. Here's a look at some highfliers and flame-outs of the past and present.

More photos and interactive graphics

Interactive: Track IPO Performance (FOR SUMMARY BULLET)

Now Twitter is striving to mature its business to be fit for an IPO—and finding it has a long way to go. Twitter's ad revenue reached $139.5 million last year, eMarketer Inc. estimates, while ad revenue at Facebook—which is two years older than Twitter—was 22 times larger at $3.15 billion.

Twitter Chief Executive Dick Costolo has said the company won't be ready to hold an IPO until it can show predictable earnings growth, which he and others close to the company said may not happen for a year or longer. Mr. Costolo said in a recent interview that he often explains to outsiders Twitter's deliberation in building the company.

"When they begin to understand our approach, they think we're doing the right thing going at our own pace," said Mr. Costolo.

Some technology investors said Twitter is right to be wary of tapping the stock market until its ad business jells.

"I wouldn't knock the company for the fact that it's taking the time to put the finishing touches on the interior design," said Ethan Kurzweil, a venture capitalist at Bessemer Venture Partners. "It's a high risk, longer term playbook."

Getty Images

The coming months will be a major test as Twitter makes its first sustained push on a growth strategy spearheaded by Mr. Costolo, a formerGoogle Inc. executive promoted to CEO about 17 months ago.

So far, Twitter has moved slowly in selling its ad formats—such as "promoted trends," for which advertisers pay about $120,000 a day to be included among Twitter's most popular topics—to avoid annoying marketers and Twitter fans.

Now the company is ramping up its push to attract small-business advertisers, grow internationally, and to try different types of ads, like political ads for the presidential election.

Last month, Twitter said it would start selling ads to small businesses for the first time. And this week, Twitter said it will start showing its full range of ads to users who access the service on Apple Inc.'s iPhone and other mobile devices.

Twitter is scattering salespeople across the country. Besides Mr. Kropp in Cincinnati, the company has a team in Detroit focusing on auto and Los Angeles for entertainment studios, among other cities.

These groups typically have one to four people, bulking up Twitter's sales team to about 120 people.

Still, marketers and investors said Twitter's success as a big business won't be cemented until its ads graduate from an experiment to a standard part of marketing campaigns.

Companies that have bought Twitter ads generally say they are happy with the percentage of people who click on their ads or circulate them to other Twitter users. But marketers also say these ads haven't proven they can convert people into paying customers, and that the audience for the ads remains small compared with television or other mass media.

Some marketers also are circumventing buying ads on Twitter by setting up bases on the service to talk directly to customers—without paying anything to Twitter.

Twitter still "doesn't have the same mass appeal of something like a TV commercial on the Super Bowl," said Joel Ewanick, General Motors Co.'s global chief marketing officer, which has used "promoted trends" for its Chevy Silverado pickup truck, among other cars.

Mr. Costolo acknowledged companies have "gotten tremendous value on Twitter for free," but said they can "amplify the value they get from Twitter" by purchasing ads. He has said when people and companies are active on Twitter, it enhances Twitter's value even if the company doesn't make money from every action.

Meanwhile, Mr. Costolo has also had to nurse Twitter's growing pains, including a board shakeup and employees uneasy about turnover.

The CEO has overseen the hiring of an ad-sales team from scratch, navigated the departures of Twitter co-founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone, and the return of another co-founder, Jack Dorsey.

A person close to Twitter said the upheavals were planned because Twitter's employee ranks, business model and discipline weren't up to snuff when Mr. Costolo took the reins.

Since the return of Mr. Dorsey—who is also CEO of mobile payments start-up Square Inc.—a year ago, he has pushed out some senior staffers, people familiar with the matter have said.

Mr. Costolo has said he and Mr. Dorsey work well together, and meet at the beginning and end of each week to hash out ideas.

Mr. Costolo is also shepherding plans for a new corporate headquarters in San Francisco, and has expanded Twitter's employee ranks by more than three-fold to more than 800 staffers.

Back at P&G, Twitter may get some good news soon. A P&G spokeswoman representing Tide said it plans to promote its new Tide Pods laundry capsules "in a paid fashion" on Twitter in the near future, but didn't disclose specifics.

Write to Shira Ovide at shira.ovide@wsj.com and Emily Glazer at emily.glazer@wsj.com

A version of this article appeared Mar. 2, 2012, on page B1 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Twitter's Slow Road to IP

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

By ALEXANDRA BERZON And KATE O'KEEFFE