SPRINGFIELD – Amid reports of whether or not MGM Resorts International – or for that matter if MGM Springfield – is performing well, the CEO of the company, James Murren seemed bullish on both his Springfield casino and the advent of national sports betting.

Murren made the comments during a recent quarterly earnings conference call made with several investment analysts. The website Seeking Alpha published the transcript of the call.

Murren was candid about the introduction of sports betting by saying, “The rollout state-by-state is as expected frustratingly slow, tortured, unclear, not transparent. Some states we believe have done it well, some states have done it very poorly. And there is a mix everywhere in between, and there are several major market states right now, that are exploring that right now.”

One analyst asked, “And then just on the topic of ramping, can you talk about – give any incremental color on how you see Springfield performing today, and how do you think that probably is going to ramp, and the other properties that are ramping right now? Thank you.”

Murren replied, “Sure … I was just there. Oh gosh, it’s a beautiful property and great. Unbelievable feedback we get from customers, from the gaming commission in Massachusetts, from the elected officials and our food and beverage operations are ahead of target. Our hotel business is ahead of target. Our gaming business is slower, but ramping. We actually saw the almost exact same thing at National Harbor [the casino that MGM built near Baltimore, MD, that opened prior to the Springfield casino], as we built into a brand new market for us. So we expect that, given the quality of the assets and the people working there and the word-of-mouth marketing, we are going to be a little bit more tactical in marketing and reminding people that we are there, particularly, leading up to a competitor in Everett, that’s opening up in the second half of this year. But we view its operating future very much the same as what we’ve seen in a different scale, with a smaller investment up there than at National Harbor, but what we are seeing in our other new properties.”

With the subject of sports betting being taken up by the Legislature, Murren spoke about a Department of Justice (DOJ) that would apparently reverse the legality of sports betting and online gambling.

An analyst asked Murren of the DOJ memo, “And I guess more specifically, has it changed MGM’s thinking at all in the near-term or is it still full throttle on the interactive and sports betting side for your company?”

It should be noted that Gov. Charlie Baker has his own legislation that would only allow sports betting at the three casinos in the state, while a grassroots group is asking for lottery agents – bars, restaurants and convenience stores – that have Keno be allowed to take sports wagers.

Murren replied, “Yes first on the second part, the latest missive from the DOJ is perplexing is an understatement. And if read as words, it would mean that Powerball as it exists in 44 states in the United States, isn’t legal anymore. And so it’s just – we think an absurdly, poorly written and unenforceable opinion. And I don’t think anyone in the industry, the gaming industry, the sports betting industry, feels any differently. As it relates to our strategy, we have – we are really excited. We are proud of what we’ve done. I think we’ve talked about this before, but we felt the pillars of success would be the following. We wanted to make sure that we had the right technology, in-house, scalable, evolving technology and we knew we didn’t have it and we didn’t want to buy it off the shelf and we did not want to buy a company, and that led us to the robust negotiations and the conclusion of joint venture with GVC [an established online gambling operator] and that is working out extremely well, certainly from an MGM perspective, but I think GVC would say the same. We have a leader there. They are scaling up their operations. They are sourcing the headquarters. They are building staff. So we feel that, that was the right decision, not only from a technology perspective, but to get the in-game betting analytics, which are really vital to real success. That’s one.

“Secondly, we wanted to develop an extraordinarily robust trusted relationship with customers, which is why – before we did almost anything else, we started reaching out to targeted number of the leagues. Those league partnerships, which we’ve announced, have resulted in manifest opportunities for us. The NBA, as an example, because of that partnership, you are going to see a far more exciting, longer lived summer league activity out here this year, what I think tremendous more attendance, viewership, interest, as one example. The MLB partnership [Major league baseball], in addition to working with MLB and their advanced analytics, through their dotcom channels, has also resulted in some exciting Japan opportunities for us, as MGM is hosting a number of the roadshow events that MLB is doing in Japan, leading up to some games that teams like the A’s and the Mariners are playing against themselves and against Japanese teams.

“The NHL, [National Hockey League] with their puck and play, and of course with our proud ownership of – at least as a town of the Golden Knights, has led to other relationships outside of that. So these league relationships at the bigger league level, and even at a – right now a micro level, with the alliance of American Football, which just launched last weekend has resulted in interesting technology play, which is how we view that involvement with AAF. That’s working out I think extremely well, but early days. “The rollout state-by-state is as expected frustratingly slow, tortured, unclear, not transparent. Some states we believe have done it well, some states have done it very poorly. And there is a mix everywhere in between, and there are several major market states right now, that are exploring that right now. Our sports betting app is doing well. Our sports books, young as they are, and in some cases only temporary, as in the case of Mississippi are at/or above what we thought they would do. So I think I would call this very competitive. Some really smart companies in this space competing against us. They too have made progress. The Ceasar’s transaction with Turner, I think is a clever and smart one. I think you will find our company going down other paths or may be similar paths, but everyone has a view this as a good opportunity. But I think I’d have to say, from our perspective at MGM, we view sports betting as a larger opportunity than simply betting on sports. We look at it as a total interactive experience, which is why you will see us talking more about social games, digital ventures, and a big part of bringing in an outside consultant that we talked about in our digital strategies around 2020, that second phase that we’ve talked about is going to be in – not only the interactive space, but around sports."