Inside Asian Gaming

13 12 eople have funny ideas about what the mainland Chinese want,” suggests Paul Steelman Design Group (PSDG) Asia Manag- ing Architect James Wong as an explanation of the pastiche and cheap glass-reinforced plastic (GRP) that litters many of the new ca- sino properties going up in Macau. He con- tinues:“They may be looking a little bit down on people from the mainland. They think as long as you come from China, you have a low intelligence, you come for a short trip, so some of this quick stuff will satisfy you.” PSDG – which set up its Macau branch office, PSDG Asia, in 2003 – designed the hugely successful Sands Macau, which in May 2004 became the first foreign-oper- The Look of Casinos to Come The design of casinos is changing to reflect the growing importance of non-gaming revenues. Paul Steelman Design Group (PSDG) Asia Managing Architect James Wong shares some rules of casino design, and offers previews of some of his firm’s upcoming projects ated casino to open in the city. Sands Macau avoided cheesy themes and instead sought to provide people a gambling venue with conspicuous “quality of space and material,” according to Mr. Wong. “Why one single ca- sino has been able to capture about 20% of the market is not because we are trying to put up cheap things,” he asserts. Inside Asian Gaming has seen many el- ements of Sands Macau being imitated around Asia, from the carpets at the Subic Diamond in the Philippines to the generous space at Galaxy’s Grand Waldo in Macau. Street Lighting As for the surfeit of neon creating an eerie daylight outside several new casinos in Ma- cau, Mr. Wong points out that “neon is not a bad thing if done right.” Indeed, the original Sands Macau was to have featured a much more comprehensive external lighting scheme, which was curtailed for cost reasons. “The result at night would have been much more eye-catching,”he claims. Sands Macau’s management is currently considering implementing some elements of the original external lighting scheme, per- haps as an add-on to the current podium expansion, which is due for completion in mid-August. Shortly after, on September 6, Wynn Macau will open its doors to the pub- lic – trailing Sands Macau by over two years to become the city’s second property from a Vegas-based operator. Wynn Macau is al- ready testing its outdoor “performance lake,” which will feature fire effects and projected holographic images, and judging by what we recently saw from the street outside, it looks like it will be a big crowd-puller. Thus, Mr.Wong agrees it’s good for Sands Macau to have “extra surprises” to draw on. The podium expansion will add about 270 gaming tables and nearly 300 slot ma- chines to bring Sands Macau’s capacity to over 700 tables and 1,200 slots – which, ac- cording to LVS President and COO William Weidner“is over three times the initial capac- ity” of Wynn Macau. Despite the famous rivalry between SteveWynn and LVS Chairman Sheldon Adel- son, Mr. Weidner acknowledges that Wynn Macau will provide a level of quality that will draw new visitors to Macau and boost the marketplace, while many of the quick and cheap properties going up around the city will quickly fall by the wayside. Mr. Weidner is especially critical of the casinos converted from disused office or residential buildings, including Galaxy’s Waldo, which sits oppo- site Sands Macau on Friendship Avenue, and the nearby Casa Real, Golden Dragon and Emperor Palace, which operate under the li- cense of Stanley Ho’s SJM.The quick-fixes are intended to save time and money, but Mr. Weidner believes such properties will soon be rendered obsolete by the glitzy new de- velopments set to open around the city. Mr. Weidner says the podium expansion will provide Sands Macau “capacity to meet the increasing importance of the mass mar- ket, which we believe will provide the lion’s share of Macau’s market growth in the years ahead.” Indeed, as Deutsche Bank’s Karen Tang points out in her “2Q Macau Trends” on page 16, Macau’s growth is currently being driven almost solely by the mass market. The podium expansion will make Sands Macau the largest casino in the world un- til LVS opens its mammoth US$2.3 billion Venetian Macau casino resort in mid-2007, with 750 tables and 4,000 slot machines. Mr. Wong explains the configuration of the podium expansion “is different in that the original Sands is one huge atrium space. The new extension is on 6 floors, although it will blend in with the various levels of the main area.” Each new level of the podium expansion will have a gross area of 2,400 sq. metres. Ac- cording to Mr.Wong, the first level will be the ground floor lobby of a future hotel annex, P