The public affairs television program Frontline was supposed to launch its investigative episode ‘Bigger than Vegas’ last Tuesday. Instead of it, there was a new episode of the investigation of the NFL issues with the increased issues of player’s concussions. Some say this was due to the increase of bad press towards the NFL.
The episode was going to be hosted by Lowell Bergman, a famous journalist with Pulitzer and Emmy awards. He was played by actor Al Pacino in the thriller movie The Insider. The ‘Bigger than Vegas’ episode would dig deep into the situation of Macau’s junket operators. It was taken down from the program list of PBS as well, which raised suspicion to why the episode was taken down.
On its official Twitter account, the Frontline series posted a statement that the episode is ‘delayed until investigation is finished’ and that when the new release date is confirmed, it will be put on the PBS schedule.
When interviewed at the Global Gaming Expo this year in Vegas, Steve Wynn of Wynn Resorts explained that the reason for the delay of the episode was that it was ‘so embarrassing.’ He also stated that the creators of the episode had an interview with a former police officer in Macau, who has given some new information concerning the size of side-betting in Macau. The information is not officially proven, therefore it might have been another cause for the delay.
Wynn further explained that the ex-policeman has stated that side-betting is around $62 billion income each year. Wynn says the claims were not supported by any evidence, and that the ex-officer simply mentioned such a possibility with no hard facts. Such a statement seems highly unlikely, according to experts from the industry. The interviewed person is said to have spent a year in jail during the 90s, and Wynn says he has no reason to trust the person’s statements.
Side-betting is a phenomenon which happens when the side which bets, and the side which receives the bet have communicated preliminary to change the way bets are taken in order to gain better margins. Examples of side-betting is the mutual understanding of betters and agents to consider a say, Hong Kong dollar, to be equal to the amount of its U.S. dollar counterpart. The side-betting problem is hard to track as it is not written down in any official statistics of the betting agencies.
There is another interesting connection to the delay of the ‘Bigger than Vegas’ episode. Last week, Steve Wynn made a claim in court against James Chanos, who also has connections with the Frontline series. Chanos is said to claim that Wynn Resorts has endowed into bribery actions which are a straight violation of the U.S. laws. He made that statement at an open discussion during the shooting of one of the Frontline episodes on the 25th of April. Chanos described the casino business of Wynn Resorts in Macau as ‘legal fraud’.
