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Business English: Golden dome opens doors to high rollers
The Grand Lisboa, with 240 tables and 485 slots, is the first in a series of major new projects that will further swell gambling opportunities in Macau this year.Executives at Sociedade de Jogos de Macau, the gaming group controlled by tycoon Stanley Ho, reverently refer to the company's newest casino as "the dome". Others in the industry have tagged the Grand Lisboa "Stanley's pumpkin'', an allusion to its bulbous design. Much is riding on whether the casino lives up to the promise of its gold-tinted exterior.
The Grand Lisboa's success or failure will determine if Mr Ho, who monopolised Macao's gambling for 40 years before the industry's liberalisation in 2002, can compete against the global gaming giants. These include the American players Las Vegas Sands, Wynn Resorts and MGM, and Australia's Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd.
Mr Ho's new casino will also be a key test of whether the former Portuguese enclave's gambling market can absorb an unprecedented increase in supply. Macao, a Chinese special administrative region 40 miles west of Hong Kong, last year edged the Las Vegas Strip as the world's largest gambling market with revenues of $7bn - almost treble the $2.4bn the territory reported in 2002. Over the same five-year period the number of casinos in Macao has increased from 11 to 25, gambling tables from 339 to 2,762 and slot machines from 808 to 6,546, according to the territory's gaming regulator.
The Grand Lisboa, with 240 tables and 485 slots, is the first in a series of major new projects that will further swell supply this year. Also in the pipeline for 2007 are Las Vegas Sands' massive $2.3bn Venetian Macao, with 3,000 hotel rooms - Macao's current stock is about 12,000 rooms - 850 tables and 4,100 slots. The Sands Macao, opened in 2004, is currently the world's largest casino with 740 tables.
PBL-Melco, a joint venture pairing James Packer of Australia with Mr Ho's son Lawrence, and another partnership, involving MGM of the US and Mr Ho's daughter Pansy, will inaugurate Macao casino projects this year as well.
Growth in the industry has been driven by a large increase in tourists. Visitor arrivals went from 11.9m in 2003 to almost 22m last year - the vast majority from either mainland China or Hong Kong. The battle for Chinese gamblers' wallets - especially those belonging to high-rolling VIP players who accounted for 60 per cent of industry revenues in the last quarter of 2006 - is intense. "The VIP business is the most important [segment]. It accounted for almost 70 per cent [of our revenues]," Mr Ho said at a press conference. "Other American operators [in Macao] rely more on the mass market. Our VIP business is better than theirs."
Last August Mr Ho and Sheldon Adelson, chairman of Las Vegas Sands, engaged in a war of words. After the Macao incumbent had complained that allegedly unfair competition was hurting his VIP room operators, his US rival advised him: "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." The rare public outburst conveniently - some say deliberately - stole limelight from Steve Wynn, who was preparing to open the Wynn Macau.
The stage has thus been set in Macao for a rare east-west clash, pitting Mr Ho and Lui Che-woo, a Hong Kong-based construction materials and property tycoon, against the likes of Mr Adelson and Mr Wynn.
While the Americans brag that they build better casinos, Mr Ho and Mr Lui claim a cultural understanding and affinity with the market that they hope will prove decisive. "We are the only gaming concessionaire whose roots lie deep in Macao," Mr Ho boasted yesterday. "It is the place we call home."
"The majority of our clientele here are Chinese. We have to cater to their tastes," said Francis Lui, Mr Lui's eldest son and vice-chairman of Galaxy Entertainment, in an interview with the Financial Times. "We are not a transplanted vehicle from Las Vegas," said Anthony Carter, Galaxy's chief executive. "We are a Hong Kong Chinese operation targeting the largest market in the world."
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FTD.de, 22.02.2007
© 2007 Financial Times Deutschland,
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