Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | September 2010 28 Asian Gaming 50 – 2010 Since its foundation, ALOG has worked with Playtech—an online gaming software supplier started three years before ALOG. Playtech is now the world’s largest publicly traded company in its field. It is internationally recognised for its groundbreaking work in gaming technology. Playtech is credited with online innovations including simultaneous multi-window casino game play and one-time account creation and login for integrated third-party systems. Mr Hall held executive roles at both ALOG and Playtech until 2008. ALOG has also worked with the pioneering former casino website DrHo888.com on live video streaming. ALOG maintains online gambling licences in Alderney (one of the UK’s approved jurisdictions for online gaming licensing), the Philippines (through the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority jurisdiction within the country) and Curacao in the Netherlands Antilles. ALOG also works in compliance with the regulator of land- based gaming in the Philippines—the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation. ALOG completed a US$250m flotation on the UK’s Alternative Investment Market in December 2007. Following the global financial crisis of 2008-09, ALOG successfully opted to return to private ownership. Mr Hall, who began his business career in financial services, has also set up a gaming investment team within ALOG. It acts on a consultancy basis to international hedge funds, as a broker and advisor on mergers and acquisitions in the gaming sector and as an investor in its own right. 19 (-) Kelvin Tan Hai Ching Senior Vice President, International Marketing Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd place in Macau, Mr Tan’s talents should prove even more valuable from now on. Mr Tan spent the earlier years of his gaming career in the Philippines and has worked for companies including Genting andWaterfront Properties Inc. Before arriving in Macau, he founded and ran a consultancy offering strategic planning, feasibility studies, valuations and junket development programs for casinos across Asia. Mr Tan holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration and an MBA in Finance from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in the United States. He is also a graduate of the Executive Development Program of the University of Nevada, Reno. Establishing and maintaining relationships with junket operators and high rollers is critical to driving VIP business to individual casino properties. Kelvin Tan is widely regarded as one of Macau’s pre- eminent VIP relationship builders, and his tireless efforts played a major role in helping MelcoCrown (Nasdaq: MPEL) finally overtake Wynn Macau to take third place in the local casino market share race as of last month. VIP baccarat contributed over 70% of the city’s total casino revenue in the first half of this year, and although all six Macau casino operators now clearly appreciate the need to cultivate VIP relationships, that wasn’t always the case. Stanley Ho’s effective 42-year casino monopoly came to an end inMay 2004, when Las Vegas Sands Corp (LVS) unveiled Sands Macao, which at opening contained 277 gaming tables in glitzy surroundings. The property’s much-hyped 10-month return on its initial US$265 million investment misses a crucial point—Sands Macao could have had made a much stronger start. That’s because it initially shunned the junkets who continue to control the bulk of the flow of VIP players into the city, as it concentrated on cultivating Macau’s long-neglected mass market. By contrast,Waldo Casino, which opened two months after Sands and operated under Galaxy Entertainment Group’s licence, was solely focused on drumming up VIP business. Waldo, which had been hastily converted from an office building and housed a mere 38 gaming tables, managed to outgross Sands in 2004. While Waldo has nowbeen relegated to an also-ran inMacau’s continuously expanding casino sector, the lesson from the initial results was obvious: VIP relationships matter. To LVS’s credit, it learned that lesson quickly, and recruited Kelvin Tan in 2005 as Vice President of Business Development at its local unit, Venetian Macau Ltd. He led the first business development team charged with expanding the premium direct and overseas junket businesses for Sands Macao. Duringhis timewith LVS, MrTanwas alsopart of the bid team that helped the company secure its Singapore casino license. Mr Tan joined MPEL in January 2009, where he is responsible for the company’s entire International Marketing business, which includes overseeing the VIP Services operations, managing an International Marketing network with five branches, and managing over fifty junkets operating at both City of Dreams (COD) and Altira Macau. MPEL now has the second-highest non- negotiable chips turnover volume among Macau’s six concessionaires (behind only Stanley Ho’s SJM), even though it pays the second lowest commissions/rebates in the market. This underscores the fact Mr Tan has a genuine knack for nurturing relationships, in contrast to others who have sought to ‘buy’business and waged ultimately fruitless price wars by offering ever-escalating commissions. With a commission cap in