“If I came to Las Vegas and hit a jackpot for $800 and have it on my phone and want to take it back home to Colorado and bet on the Broncos next weekend, I can’t do that. It would be nice to be holistic as an industry [to have one wallet]. How do we think about that as regulators is important going forward.”
— MGM Resorts International CEO Bill Hornbuckle, on how regulation needs to change to allow players to have a mobile wallet that can transfer funds and make them available across state lines legally
“We feel like we have gotten back people’s trust in us, and that’s the most powerful thing. Hopefully, we won’t do something that can break that trust. We built it back after a pretty tough time.”
— Wynn Resorts CEO Matt Maddox, on how his company’s culture was shaken in 2018 and 2019 (amid allegations over Steve Wynn) but that there was a reason why his employees had an 87% vaccination rate by June
Photo CDC Gaming
“They can do anything they want. They can have babies — wait, they can’t have babies in six weeks the last time I checked.”
— Hornbuckle, on a new program the company MGM recently launched to give executives a six-week sabbatical to help them avoid burnout
“People get sick of it. It is up to us to understand how to capture the customers but not inundate all Amercans with ‘bet now, bet now and bet now’. That will be a delicate balance as people are spending billions and billions of dollars on marketing.”
— Maddox, on taking responsible gambling seriously as sports betting and, although more slowly, igaming roll out across the USA
“Politicians wake up worried about getting re-elected.”
— Maddox, on why it’s difficult to get igaming expanded across the country as has been done with sports betting
