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Radio news as a continue our coverage right now of live events, and who better than talk to than the man behind Mohegan of course as the big casino company, and of course they run a lot of big events as well, including the w NBA's son CEO and President Ray Pineau joining us right now around the desk here in Studio two. Great to have you here.
Thank you for having me. I really appreciate you giving me the time to be here with you.
Let's talk about that discretionary spend because of course we know the casino environment which really encompasses a lot more than gambling, as of course you know, of course, it's concerts, basketball, a lot of other things. There are you still seeing pretty healthy appetite for that stuff.
You know, Listen, when we came out of the COVID period, obviously, you know, resort operations had a significant spike. I think we're seeing more of a normalization now and a return to normalcy, which I'm okay with because it's nice, steady growth. Then there's no unexpected ups and down, so I'm hoping that we can avoid that for a while. But I'm pretty happy with what we're seeing at the performance at our properties and you know, continuing to evolve and meet
our guest needs. And I think we continue to do that, and I think that you get acceptance from your guests when you're able to provide them.
Have you noticed any shift in spending. We've talked a lot about how the consumer might be hurt by inflation and other things. Are they spending less when they come to your resorts or is it about the same.
What are you seeing so over the last you know, six to nine months, it's about the same. I think that we had a spiked period in there for about a year and a half to two years where you know, there was extra money in the economy and people had extra money in their savings accounts, so it kind of expiked all discretionary income spending at that point in time. And now it's cooled off and it's about the same. We're hoping to see, you know, a nice steady two
to three percent growth. We're in you know, what I would consider mature markets. They've been around for a long time. Well, he can sign our flagship in Connecticut has been open over twenty eight years now, so you know, it's kind of in a steady state now, and what we need to do is continue to evolve and grow and bring new products to our guests, to continue to encourage their or discritioninatory spending a movie's on and our properties.
Right, that's part of the description of things normalizing that you fall back on the strength of your brand, of your reputation and what you offer to your customers. Mohican some one of the most prominent Native American owned businesses in the world. You're in Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Canada in the Niagara region. What do you understand about those specific markets better than bigger competitors like Las Vegas. Sands are an MGM.
Listen, I think it's a very competitive environment where we're talking about Sands or win or Caesars, right, those hard rock you know, all big competitors for us. But you know, we fall back on our culture and our brand and who we are. We never sacrifice who we are, and we talk about our culture and making sure that it's a team and family environment. We talk about our team as our team. We're all in this together and we
walk about this together. And what's important to us is making sure we bring our culture to wherever we go. But as we're going into these new jurisdictions, we're also mindful of the jurisdictions we're going into. We have to be mindful of their culture. We have to be mindful of the way that they do business while bringing our culture there and being mindful of that.
Okay, So one of the jurisdictions you're looking to enter is New York City. What is the latest on your pitch to win a downstate casino license?
So obviously it's a crowded field in New York City. You know, we have a pretty definitive timeline. We think right now that the city that the state has laid out for the bidding process, We've been working diligently on putting our response into the RFA and we know that we'll have that ready come June time when we think they're going to call for the r phase. We have the largest undeveloped land in New York City. It's almost
seven acres right off the FDR Drive. Tremendous access when you think about the ease of access of getting to this piece of property, and you know, we've been in the New England region for twenty eight years. We know the consumer. We know what they're looking for. We know how to appeal to the New England guests. That's where our flag is started, that's where we're from. So we
understand the New York market. We understand this entire region, and I think that we have a very competitive presentation to put forward to the state.
It's interesting you bring up the location on the FDR. I don't want to make this too hyper local, but as you know, some of the competing bids, of course, are more focused on the West Side, and that seems to be at least from what we heard from this administration, the Adam's administration a few months ago, that they were leaning a little bit more towards that part of the city. Are you worried at all that that might actually undercut you?
It's going to be a competitive process from there, right, I mean, I don't think there's any given in any of this is at least ten, twelve, fourteen competitors that are going to be going for and they're all formidable competitors. So I don't want to diminish anything that anybody else is doing. What we're going to do is put the best,
best product forward that we possibly can. We believe we have a very compelling project that is going to rank with the best of any of them, and we're going to provide not only that, but we're also going to provide the city with affordable housing and a museum along with park space, things that are badly and sorely needed in New York City. So we think we have a compelling project. What ultimately happens is we're going to put our best foot forward. We believe that we're we're the
best project for New York City. But ultimately, you know, all we can do is put our best foot forward and then let the process play itself out.
All right, Speaking of experision, you also recently open a five bo million dollars integrated resort called Inspire in Seoul, South Korea. The casino will be a small part of the project, which matters because according to Korean law, only non citizens can legally gamble. So what do you anticipate the breakdown to be? Will it be like eighty percent non gaming, twenty percent gaming, or more like fifty to fifty.
So right now we're targeting more of a fifty to fifty break. It is much smaller casino. When you think about us casinos where US resorts, I should say not casinos, the casino is a larger portion of the overall footprint. That is not true in an Inchhon where we are, it's a much smaller footprint. In fact, the number of slot machines that they have there is only about one fifth of what we have in Connecticut, but the number of table games is about the same, if not a
little bit more. In the in the Asian region, they're much heavier cable games players than they are slot players. But we're also banking on all the amenities that we're bringing there. So when you think about all a dining, all a shopping, we have a water park that's there. We have a fifteen thousand seat arena, we have twelve undred hotel rooms. We obviously have our spa, we have a convention center.
So it's not just.
Relying on the gaming aspect of it. Because as you pointed out, Scarlett, this is a foreigners only casino. We're also tracting this twenty five million people that live in the Greater Inchon Sooul area that we're bringing out for all the other amenities, including the outside park that we have that people can come and enjoy.
Just real quickly, and we only have about about thirty seconds left. But I do want to circle back to your property in Connecticut and specifically with the Sun the women's professional basketball teams. I'm sure you know Boston wants your team. Are you going to give it to them?
Yeah?
Say they say it should be the Boston You know.
The interesting thing is it's a great partnership. We've actually had a game in Boston. Yeah. I don't know if people who are familiar with that.
And we sold out t D Garden. Yeah, and that's why they say in this you move ahead.
Well, you know what, we sell out. We've sell off. We've sell out the muhigan Son Arena and they do a fantastic job and we were very fortunate Caitlin Clark's first professional basketball again, is that Mohigan song?
Yes, we did all we all watched.
Yeah, and I'll stay in mohgan Son. I'm sorry, Gray, thank you so much for joining us today. Ray pano is MAHOI again, President and CEO, appreciate it. Thanks for having me