Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | Oct 2007 8 has had to work harder for recognition, but has apparently succeeded. Macau is now emerging as a brand in its own right, and the city has played a big role in raising the pro- file of both LVS and Wynn worldwide. After all, it was indisputably the success of Sands Macao that catapulted Sheldon Adelson to the sixth position on Forbes’ Billionaires List, even before he opened his second Macau property (and third worldwide). The Macau brand will drive Galaxy’s future success, and Galaxy’s performance will in turn raise Macau’s profile. Mr Lui observes that Wynn Macau is ba- sically a much smaller version of Wynn Las Vegas, while Venetian Macau is essentially a larger facsimile of its Vegas counterpart. By contrast,“we come into the gaming industry Materials Ltd, which acquired Galaxy Ca- sino, S.A. for HK$18.4 billion in 2005 before changing its name. In the July issue of Inside Asian Gaming, casino marketing columnist Octo Chang wondered whether Melco PBL Entertaiment (a JV between Macau casino mogul Stanley Ho’s son, Lawrence, and Australia’s Publish- ing and Broadcasting Ltd) had used its local connections at all, given the numerous con- struction delays and cost blowouts at its first Macauproperty,the 216-roomCrownMacau. The property opened over eight months late, and the construction bill ballooned from the original US$192 million budget to US$583 million. By comparison, the 507-room Star- World cost US$385 million, and suffered only a minor opening delay. Taking ownership StarWorld is located on the Macau Pen- insula, at the heart of the thriving Avenida de Amizade (Friendship Avenue) strip— where Wynn Macau, Sands Macao, and Stan- ley Ho’s new and old Lisboas also sit. It is the first property Galaxy actually owns in Macau, but before it opened in October 2006, Gal- axy had already set up casinos within four other properties in the city. These so-called “city clubs”—including Waldo and President along Avenida de Amizade, the nearby Rio, and Grand Waldo close to the Venetian on Cotai—are owned by third parties, with Gal- axy keeping a share of revenues in return for operating the casinos within. StarWorld is more glitzy than the “city clubs,” and provid- ed Galaxy its first opportunity to establish its own brand identity. A brand is born “The big decision” for Galaxy when plan- ning its flagship property was whether to “borrow a brand”, says Mr Lui,“like getting a hotel brand coming in.” In the end,“we were confident enough in our own product that we felt the best way to do it is to build our own brand.”And so StarWorld was born. Although much hype surrounded the opening of properties from LVS and Wynn Resorts in Macau, most Chinese were not familiar with those brands before they ar- rived in Macau—unlike McDonald’s, Coca Cola, Starbucks, and other big brands which had long before entered Mainland China and can truly claim global recognition. The only thing most of the opening-day throngs of Mainland Chinese at Sands and Wynn in Macau did know about the respec- tive brands behind those properties was that they originated from “Fabulous Las Ve- gas.”Thus,“Vegas” was the brand Messieurs Adelson and Wynn parlayed in drawing the masses in Macau. Unable to leverage the Vegas brand, GEG