Inside Asian Gaming

January 2011 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 27 In Focus S easoned Vietnam watchers will tell you that when it comes to major real estate development projects, it’s more important to focus on the trends than on the headline numbers quoted by government officials for capital investment. By that reckoning, the trend in the casino gaming segment is clear. Two major multi-billion dollar casino resort projectswith‘serious’(i.e., internationally-recognised) partners have been announced within weeks of each other in addition to the Ho Tram Strip originally approved back in 2008. The latter is currently on schedule for a first phase opening of its first casino hotel—MGM Grand Ho Tram–in Q1 2013. A key question is whether the timing of this IR trend is significant, and whether it’s an indication that Vietnam could soon liberalise its casino market to allow locals to play. An assumption behind that thought is that it would be hard, if not impossible, for three or more multi-billion dollar integrated gaming resorts to exist without such market liberalisation. Certainly, the experience in SouthKorea is that thebarringof local players in all but one of the country’s 17 casinos has limited both the size of the market and the amount of capital investment it can support. There are currently four casinos in Vietnam open to foreigners-only, but they are relatively small-scale operations, not integrated resorts. Vietnam had a population of 85.8 million at the 2009 census. Although the average income is just a shade over US$1,000 per Rich Brew Two new integrated casino resort projects with heavy-hitting development partners have been announced in Vietnam