Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | March 2008 46 Feature as dealers, the city’s intensifying labour crunch has led to constant speculation of when that ban might be lifted. PAGCOR President and COO Rafael “Butch” Francisco told Inside Asian Gaming that even though PAGCOR was only established in 1976, illegal casinos operating in Manila Bay in the 1950s produced highly-skilled dealers who helped set up South Korea’s first casino in 1967. He also points out that“most of our executives today started as dealers,” including “most branch managers” and even the previous holder of Mr Francisco’s own position at PAGCOR. Since 2002, dealer positions in the Philippines are restricted to those who hold a minimum of an undergraduate degree, whereas in Macau, even high-school drop-outs can find jobs as dealers. Mr Francisco explains that if a dealer has been to university, “it will be easier for them to be promoted.”This is good for morale, and stands in contrast to Macau, where dealers with scant qualifications have been known to grumble if they have not been promoted after a year of employment. Abbiati Ainsworth Aristocrat Aruze Astro Corp. Atronic Bally Bayview Tech. DFNN DVTel Elixir En Cash F2 Systems First Cagayan FutureLogic Games Corp. Gaming Revolution Glimex IEST IGT JCMGlobal Jimei Jumbo Tech. KGI Kolonwel Konami Money Controls Omniprime Orion Pacific Gaming Paltronics Phil Kingdom Philweb Piatnik Prestige R. Franco Real Corp. RGB Games Sibel Truevest LLC The Bright Group Wincor WMS Xtale Grand plans One of the main topics of discussion at the Gaming, Tourism & Investment Congress will be the Bagong Nayong Pilipino-Manila Bay Integrated Entertainment City, PAGCOR Chairman and CEO Efraim C. Genuino’s vision of an entertainment complex, similar to the Las Vegas Strip, built on a stretch of reclaimed land in the Bay City area along Roxas Boulevard.The Entertainment City is expected to boast a complex of luxury hotels, convention centers, state-of- the-art theaters, sports stadium, restaurants, shopping centers, cultural museums, amusement parks and one of the world’s tallest observation towers. The first phase of the Entertainment City is expected to cover 85 hectares, and the entire project developed over ten years in various phases at a cost of at least US$20 million. It was the anticipated massive foreign investment from international casino resort operators into the Entertainment City that served as the impetus to launch Asia’s GEM. List of Gaming Exhibitors