A Successful Business Model

TAKEAWAY: A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MODEL

And I also have to admit, as I’m making confessions, that, as the Irish Catholic boy from Connecticut, I never thought the day would come when the Commonwealth would approve a gaming law. But you did so. And here we are.

I think, in looking at it, reflecting upon it, I have to say that it’s a fine piece of legislation. It was crafted, in my opinion, to be far more than simply slot machines in some boring box. You were very clear early on that you wanted to purposely frame the legislation to encourage tourism, to encourage quality development and diversified development. You were looking for significant injection of economic activity and energy, and of course job growth along with it.

I was instantly attracted to that because that is our strength as a company and it’s what I like to do. And we intend to try to do that here and do our best. You see that 70 percent of my revenue is from non-gaming sources. We would be, as a standalone company, one of the largest restaurant companies in the United States, certainly one of the largest hotel companies, largest entertainment companies.

We do build quality, because quality is built to last. And it’s a business model, I believe, that is not as vulnerable to neighboring states opening up, as clearly New York State will and perhaps states such as New Hampshire.

And this model has proved successful in the past, and it will prove successful here. We are the market leaders in any metric you would like to examine in every market in which we operate, whether it be in Detroit or Mississippi, Las Vegas or overseas in China. And people have taken notice of that in many ways.