As the head of Wynn Resorts, Maddox was credited with developing a transparent and successful Covid-19 response this spring. He said that the company’s presence in Macau informed their US strategy.
Macau casinos closed for two weeks beginning in early February, a period which preceded US casino shutdowns by more than a month.
“I lived in Macau and Hong Kong back in 2002 and went through SARS,” Maddox said. “So talking to my colleagues over there and people that had family members in Wuhan, the fear was much different this time, and the reaction was much different. We quickly realized, ‘I hope this doesn’t become in the US but’s probably going to.’”
Maddox responded to the emerging crisis by hiring Dr. Rebeca Katz, Director of the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University Medical Center.
“Right when we closed, we started using our medical experts coupled with all of our team to develop a plan to reopen,” Maddox said. “And we had all the resources. By having everybody on board, it actually allowed us by April 19, which was really early, to put out a 27-page reopening plan and health and safety plan.”
When developing the plan, Maddox wanted to create a document for other people to use and give outside voices an opportunity to crowdsource better ideas, which Wynn would incorporate.
As Wynn was setting up its medical plan to ensure a safe reopening, Maddox committed to paying all company employees through the casino closures.
“We decided to keep all 15,000 people in North America on board, from housekeepers to the president fully paid with debts” Maddox said. “With the reason being it was so unknown then that I thought, telling people that there’s an invisible killer out there and we don’t what’s going to happen, and by the way you’re now furloughed? Too much at one time.”
Miller commended Maddox for developing a clear Covid-19 plan as well as the decision to keep paying employees, a decision that went against what most other operators were doing at the time.
“Everybody was figuring out what to do, everybody was doing something, but nobody was as public and as forward leaning as you were, so I say thank you on behalf of the entire industry,” Miller said.
