Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | January 2008 8 Cover Story dismissed. MGM MIRAGE Chairman and CEO Terry Lanni pointed out: “I’ve been in this business for 31 years and there isn’t a year has gone by that people are saying: aren’t you building one room too many and or one casino too many in Las Vegas? “So far we haven’t and I guess you really don’t know until you build that one room too many.” As Macau finally achieves a critical mass of attractions, demand should also rise exponentially as visitors start to stay longer.The aver- age stay at Macau’s five star hotels in 2006 was only 1.45 days, while the October 2007 length of stay was almost double at 2.45 days. As visitors stay longer, spending and gambling rises several-fold, as dis- cussed in “Borderline Case” on page 47. Mr Lanni believes differentiation is emerging among Macau’s ca- sinos, and “the high-end in the marketplace will settle for some time between the Grand Lisboa, Wynn and ourselves, along with to a de- gree StarWorld, and I think Le Royal Arc now.” Basically, he contends the high-end will be concentrated where there is a critical mass of properties—namely, on the Macau peninsula, and, for the moment at least, not on Cotai, where The Venetian sits on its own.“People in the gambling industry, if they feel unlucky in one place, they like to try their luck someplace else. You want to be close to someplace else,” he explains. Mr Lanni believes Macau, like Vegas, will see synergistic coop- eration among properties. “Steve Wynn is a great operator, great designer. He reaches out and brings in people. Just like the Grand Lisboa, because of the history of them being so long in this mar- ketplace. And we do the same thing. And if we all are doing what we’re doing well, frankly that business will flow among us three properties. If we’re building something special—great restaurants, great spas—and Steve Wynn and Stanley Ho do the same, we can all share in that business.” Although MGM Grand Macau is entering the high-end market