Inside Asian Gaming

July 2008 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 25 As well as selling its own equipment, RGB distributes some of the world’s leading gaming equipment brands including AGT, Alfastreet, Atronic, Cashcode, Orion and WMS. RGB also makes gaming chips and tables under the RGB Abbiati brand. In May, RGB added ShuffleMaster products to its portfolio, with its distributorship covering Cambodia,thePhilippines,Thailand,Vietnam, Taiwan, Indonesia, Laos, Brunei, India and Myanmar for a period of three years. A graduate of Canada’s Brock University, Mr Lim joined Dreamgate in 1988 as Management Executive for the marketing of gaming and amusement machines. He has over 20 years of experience in sales and marketing and has been instrumental in growing the group’s gaming equipment market share. He also has extensive experience in the regional gaming industry and is a member of the planning committee of PAGCOR, the Philippines’ gaming regulator. managing venues on behalf of investors, advising governments and investors on commercial and legal compliance issues, organising executive recruitment for venues and operators and running a portfolio of shops based in casino resorts. Through the Navegante Group, Mr Woolf beat out twenty-seven other potential operators to win the bid to develop and operate the Casino Niagara, which has since prospered.He also opened Casino Fandango in Carson City, Nevada, in 2003. In Asia, Mr Woolf is a gaming consultant for Galaxy Entertainment Group in Macau. He is also CEO of Amazing Holdings,in which he has an equity interest. Amazing Holdings, through its wholly owned Taiwanese subsidiary, Amazing Taiwan, is managing an opportunity which, the company believes, will enable it to win the bid to build and operate Taiwan’s first casino resort development in the Penghu Islands. 36 Steven Lim Tow Boon Executive Director, Dreamgate Corporation Bhd 37 Larry J. Woolf Founder and Chairman, The Navegante Group CEO, Amazing Holdings Mr Lim manages the Sales & Marketing Division and Technical Support & Management Division as well as business development of Dreamgate Corporation Bhd, which has seen its bottom line grow strongly since listing on the Malaysian Stock Exchange in 2003. He spearheaded the development of Dreamgate subsidiary RGB, a regional leader in the manufacturing, refurbishment,sale andmarketingof gaming and amusement machines. 38 Cho Ki-Song President, KangwonLand Cho Ki-Song can add KangwonLand Resort & Casino—South Korea’s only casino where it is legal for locals to play—to his long list of turnaround successes. Mr Cho, who took the helm at the company in March 2006, is credited for overcoming a plague of problems at South Korea’s largest resort—mistrust of management in the wake of successive disgraced executive resignations, declining profitability, and a proposed tax on admission into casinos. Today, KangwonLand is a testament to Mr Cho’s games with overseas companies. In Mr Cho’s latest CEO message on the KangwonLand website, he points to the resort’s financial success, with 2007 revenue at more than KRW 1 trillion (US$954 million) and operating income at KRW 400 billion. Visitors are responding to the resort’s reinvention by flocking there in record numbers. In 2007, the resort saw 3.4 million visitors. outstanding leadership. By promoting innovation, Mr Cho has successfully revitalised profitability and transformed KangwonLand from state-run monopoly to successful private company. He is the first president of the resort hired from the private sector—all his predecessors were previously government officials.In his previous roles,he created and led LG Electronics and LG Philips Display into globally recognized brands. Mr Cho was actually raised in Korea’s impoverished Kangwon province, and his ongoing drive to diversify KangwonLand beyond gaming is transforming the property into a family resort where visitors can enjoy a variety of entertainment. The company also has plans to venture abroad into Vietnam, Cambodia and Mongolia and is looking to develop video and online Mr. Woolf started his career in gaming with Harrah’s in 1967 and has worked in management positions for several high profile,publicly traded hotel/casinos.In 1990, he joined MGM Grand Hotel & Casino as Chairman and CEO.The mammoth Las Vegas Strip property, which boasts more than 5,000 rooms, took over three years to design, build and staff.While operating the property, Mr Woolf contracted such entertainers as Barbara Streisand, Mike Tyson and the Rolling Stones. In 1995, after a short retirement, Mr Woolf founded the Navegante Group, which identifies casino resort opportunities for various international clients, as well as