Inside Asian Gaming

inside asian gaming JUNE 2015 10 Feature In Focus that helping the situation. “I’m not sure bigger junkets have any advantages,’ he says. “At some point, mass will become 70-to-80% of gaming revenue.” “The fear factor within China is here to stay,” Sanford C Bernstein (Hong Kong) Global Gaming Senior Analyst Vitaly Umansky says. “But at some point it becomes the norm, and people will come back to gaming. Whether they come back to Macau is another question.” He contends, “The challenge is bringing product to the market people want.” PLOT AT THE TOP “Studio City could drive incremental demand. It’s a potential game changer” Mr Umansky, who once worked for the property’s minority owner New Cotai, says. “That’s the most valuable piece of land in Macau,” adjacent to the Lotus Bridge border crossing to Hengqin island and a stop on Macau’s light rail line. Studio City will include a figure-eight Ferris wheel built into the art deco structure, a family entertainment area with Warner Brothers and DC Comics themes featuring the Batman Dark Knight Flight ride, plus a television studio, 5,000-seat arena and The House of Magic, featuring traditional masters of illusion and prestidigitation, plus multimedia technologies in three different settings. Mr Umansky believes Sands China’s Parisian and Wynn Cotai, both scheduled to open in the first half of next year, could also be demand drivers. “My base case is fundamentals bottoming late this year. Mass picks up early next year,” he says. The only investment banking analysts based in Macau, Union Gaming Research Macau, upgraded the city’s gaming sector to buy in January. “Clearly the turnaround has not happened yet,” Managing “The fear factor within China is here to stay,” Sanford C Bernstein (Hong Kong) Global Gaming Senior Analyst Vitaly Umansky says. “But at some point it becomes the norm, and people will come back to gaming. Whether they come back to Macau is another question.” Macau Studio City