Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | August 2010 10 side of the market? PJ: At my last count there were 23 vendors sellingmachines inMacau. Probably not all of them are fit for this market. Certainly most people [operators] stick to the top six [manufacturing] names. But there are some newcomers that bring some innovative products. And I think some of that innovative, different looking product is what is getting the new players in. Call them fads, call themgimmicks, whatever you want to call it—if they [the new products] have a different look and presence on the floor, then people will try them because they’re Treasure Hunt slot lounge at Grand Lisboa Now we have players in the Macau market who can drop over a million US [dollars] in a day. From HK$40,000 to a million US in five years is pretty remarkable growth. high as 30% in some months, depending on different factors. Now that operators are starting to offer the returns on the high end machines, we’re getting the crossover of some table players who realise they can get a reasonably good return. They can spend HK$6,000 and win HK$6 million. If you want to win HK$6 million at a table, you’ll generally have to put up six million. So we are getting table players who see the machines as a good gambling device. DC: When Sands opened I believe they started with 450 slot machines. Now there are over 13,000 in the Macau market. And their share of revenue continues to grow and grow. The [age] 40 to 60 crowd of gamblers grew up on movies like The God of Gamblers . If you talk to any Chinese person out there, they know that movie. Now we’re talking about the Wii generation. Slots will progress just like they did in Las Vegas. Slots used to be off to the side for the wives when their husbands came in to play blackjack. Now it’s 80% of the [gaming] revenue. MP: How competitive is the supplier Slots at Hard Rock Casino Cover Story Slots at City of Dreams