Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | May 2010 18 How important will Marina Bay Sands be in terms of its contribution to your global operation? Marina Bay Sands will be the most important product in our system, although it doesn’t have the amount of [hotel] rooms that [our] Las Vegas [offer] has. From a financial investment as well as a return on investment standpoint, Singapore should be the largest [operation] in the company. When Singapore is open and mature, about 85% of our EBITDA [earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation] for the company will come from Asia—that is, Macau and Singapore. Only 15% will come from the United States. The major market for Singapore is Singapore itself from an integrated resort standpoint. From a casino standpoint, Indonesia and Malaysia will be the second most important markets. A little bit after that would probably come India, Hong Kong. We are not targeting mainland Chinese. There will be some tourism business [from China]. The tour business has increased in Singapore from mainland China, but it [that business] would not necessarily be a gaming target. As the middle class in China grows, there may be some visitation from China. Do you anticipate having the gaming industry trade show G2E Asia at MBS? I haven’t heard anything about the possibility of that. Actually we’d probably like them to stay in [The Venetian] Macau. I don’t think we’ll need it here. Macau right now is a little slower on the MICE. It’s still getting out of the ‘blocks’. But G2E Asia might come here one day. I want to turn now to Macau and Cotai plots five and six. Mr Adelson has told us that you are going to get the workers you need for Cotai five and six. But will you get all the tables you need? The conversation with the [Macau] government at this point is that we’re guaranteed a certain amount of the tables we need to open, and the maximum amount of tables we need in 2013. A ‘certain amount,’ but not all before 2013? We will support those ‘missing’ tables with tables from our other facilities until we get the tables in 2013. In other words, we will use some tables we currently have that are not being maximised. Do you have any further ambitions in Asia? Our first target really now is Japan. The press has said that Japan is considering seriously building an integrated resort. We have visited both Tokyo and Osaka, and contacted people on the ground there. If there is hope Japan will do it, we believe it will be done on an integrated resort basis in Tokyo or Osaka or possibly Okinawa, which is not really our target, but the first two are. I said to Mr Adelson recently: ‘I think we ought to spend all our time on Japan right now and not diversify our effort [away from Asia]. There have been some inquiries from [South] Korea. Korea is a little bit more difficult because they do not allow locals in all but one casino. We would not do an integrated resort if locals are not allowed, even if there has to be a fee [for entry] as with the Singapore model. That model, with a fee payable by locals [for casino entry], would be the model we would propose if we went into Korea. Also the tax rates in Korea are a little egregious for gaming. They would need to be modified [from the LVS perspective]. Korea would like to have an integrated resort, but you can’t support our kind of integrated resort there [with the no locals rule]. We have a delegation coming in fromKorea for the grandopening of Marina Bay Sands on 23rd June. There’s been talk about Japan legalising casino gaming for at least the last ten years. There’s no guarantee the government will do so. Could you do a Japanese resort without gaming? You can’t support our sort of infrastructure without a gaming base of revenue. Mr Adelson’s proposal is that the gaming allows you to build the other facilities. To wait for the MICE business to mature and to wait for the transient business to mature is something you just can’t afford to do. Nobody would come in and build a 2,500-room hotel like this [at Marina Bay], with all these facilities, without gaming. You can’t pay for it. Cover Story A hotel suite at Marina Bay Sands The Macau government announced a 5,500 table cap limit in March