The billionaire boss for American casino and entertainments firm Landry’s Incorporated has reportedly revealed that his firm has been forced to temporarily lay off about 40,000 people as a result of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

According to a Tuesday report from the news website at Yahoo.com, Tilman Fertitta (pictured) detailed that the redundancies represented around 70% of his company’s workforce and were made necessary after authorities began ordering the closure of casinos, hotels and restaurants nationwide so as to fight the spread of a highly-contagious coronavirus strain that has so far killed some 819 Americans.

Pronounced presence:

The domain reported that Landry’s Incorporated is responsible for five Golden Nugget-branded casinos in four states including New Jersey and Nevada alongside hundreds of restaurants embracing the Bubba Gump Shrimp and Del Frisco’s chains.

Restricted revival:

Yahoo.com reported that 62-year-old Fertitta moreover owns the Houston Rockets franchise of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and declared that casinos and restaurants should be permitted to re-open with reduced capacities in a few weeks’ time so as to soften any long-term economic downsides and ensure companies do not go out of business.

Fertitta reportedly proclaimed…

“I think what we are doing with the shut-down is good but in a few weeks people will need to be around people. Otherwise you are going to go into an economic crisis that is going to take us years to dig ourselves out of.”

Optimistic outlook:

The Texas native furthermore reportedly stated that every one of his firm’s casinos including the 717-room Golden Nugget Atlantic City have now been shuttered with their accompanying restaurants only doing about 4% of their normal business via the provision of takeaway meals. He purportedly pronounced that the company is currently burning through a few millions of dollars every day but possesses sufficient reserves and debt facilities to weather the coronavirus storm.

Fertitta reportedly declared…

“We are doing basically no business. This is very hard on a lot of working families but we have to survive or there is no company. As soon as I see us making the turn and everything is going to re-open, we are 100% going to buy back our debt. I see that as a great opportunity.”