{"id":215453,"date":"2015-11-27T06:06:45","date_gmt":"2015-11-26T20:06:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=215453"},"modified":"2015-11-27T06:06:45","modified_gmt":"2015-11-26T20:06:45","slug":"best-sunshine-live-opens-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/best-sunshine-live-opens-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Sunshine Live opens today"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Best Sunshine Live, the casino training facility of Best Sunshine International, Ltd., will open to the public today. In this photo handout, the training facility, according to casino experts, is the world’s most expensive training facility. (Contributed Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The live casino on Saipan formally opens today. Launching at full capacity with 40 gaming tables ready, the Best Sunshine Live casino in T Galleria has announced its grand opening for 6pm this evening, one of many milestones they call part of their aim to help \u201cthe CNMI economy recover and change the landscape of gaming in the Pacific.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement, Best Sunshine International, Ltd. said they are eager to uncork surprises as part of its formal launch tonight. One of them is \u201cover $1,000 raffle every hour.\u201d \u201cMark your calendar and join in the merrymaking,\u201d the casino statement said.<\/p>\n

Best Sunshine says their grand opening will set the tone for the future of gaming operations in the region. \u201cIt will herald the entry of a once-sleepy island community into the company of world-class destinations,\u201d the casino added.<\/p>\n

This bodes well for the rise of Saipan as a \u201cmecca of global travelers with a gnawing hunger for a new brand of entertainment and leisure,\u201d the casino said in its statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an outstanding effort,\u201d said casino consultant Andrew Klebanow, who has visited over 700 casinos across the globe. He called Best Sunshine\u2019s gaming facility \u201cimpressive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Best Sunshine is planning to build a $7.1-billion multi-phase integrated resort and is planning to realize this through a casino resort in Garapan and other future projects in the northern part of the island. The casino in T Galleria is just a temporary training facility for its workers to gain experience for the projected $500-million project in Garapan, where the former American Samoa housing project used to sit. This project has been dubbed the \u201cGrand Mariana Casino and Hotel Resort\u201d and is reported to finish construction by December 2016.<\/p>\n

To date, the casino investor has plunked down $200 million on Saipan, with over 600 employees.<\/p>\n

Recently, Best Sunshine brought the entire cast and crew of the Chinese variety show Running Man to film several episodes on Saipan. Best Sunshine said they wanted to bring Saipan to the consciousness of over 400 million viewers in China with this venture.<\/p>\n

The casino says they plan to bring in more top media and tour groups from Japan and China, but note they \u201ccannot do it alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt takes the entire community to believe and make it happen. As the CNMI tourism ambassadors usually say, \u2018Tourism is our business.\u2019 It should indeed be everyone\u2019s business,\u201d Best Sunshine said in its statement.<\/p>\n

Regulator mulls presence at casino party<\/p>\n

In related news, Saipan casino regulators weighed Wednesday whether they would attend today\u2019s grand opening of the temporary casino in T Galleria.<\/p>\n

Envelopes with invites stamped on \u201cgolden\u201d tickets have been sent to government officials and lawmakers ahead of the casino\u2019s grand opening.<\/p>\n

During their meeting Wednesday, Commonwealth Casino Commission executive director Edward Deleon Guerrero told commissioners that he sent a letter to the Office of the Public Auditor, and copied the CNMI Attorney General\u2019s Office, to seek \u201cguidance on their presence at the casino.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Guerrero, the letter sought guidance on \u201cgray areas\u201d in the law, such as whether they could accept a bottle of water or food, or speak at the ceremony if asked.<\/p>\n

For his part, Mike Ernest, the commission\u2019s lawyer who also represents the Attorney General, advised against speaking or partaking in food or drink, or even attending at all.<\/p>\n

He personally has no plans to attend, unless told to.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe commission cannot in good conscience take part in it,\u201d he said, noting that they should send their enforcement agencies instead.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more we are seen to be intertwined\u201d with casino, he said, the more it would affect public perception and would \u201cpreclude them from being neutral in fact-finding if a hearing\u201d takes place over any alleged violation during the casino party.<\/p>\n

Commissioner Alvaro Santos noted, though, that social courtesy is very important.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot to accept is almost offensive. Might as well not show up\u2026especially with our culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cOPA wants us to be \u2018stoic and stiff,\u2019\u201d he said, but to \u201cshow up and leave\u2014that\u2019s very discourteous.\u201d<\/p>\n

That same day, Saipan Tribune sent an email to Office of Public Auditor lawyer Ashley Kost to follow up on the commission\u2019s concerns. There was no response as of press time yesterday. Phone calls requesting comment from the OPA office were also not immediately responded to on Wednesday. The government was off yesterday and also today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The live casino on Saipan formally opens today. Launching at full capacity with 40 gaming…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":215456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[1707,3126,136,2141],"class_list":["post-215453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-best-sunshine-international","tag-commonwealth-casino-commission","tag-opa","tag-public-auditor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}