Inside Asian Gaming

Wynn Macau Cotai resort, according to sources spoken to by Inside Asian Gaming . If gazetting were to come quickly, it’s highly unlikely Wynn would use that fact to try to exert legal or other pressure to speed up the construction timetable against the government’s will. The company values its relationship with the local leadership too highly to resort to the tactics of a hustler. But seen from the government’s perspective, the more transparent and formal its administrative processes become—as long requested by the investment community—the more the government has to watch its own back against the possibility of formal legal challenge. It’s another good example (from the industry’s perspective) of being careful what you wish for. There are political and practical reasons why an early gazetting might not be desirable for the Macau authorities. With the government’s current restrictions on imported construction labour, nearly every available pair of calloused hands is busy working for Sands China on its Sands Cotai Central project. (The latter was previously referred to as ‘Cotai 5 & 6’ because of the land plot numbers assigned to that particular site). And the government’s moratorium on land allocations for new gaming projects—announced by former Chief Executive Edmund Ho in April 2008 (at the same time as a 5,500-table cap on live gaming capacity) is, as far as anyone knows, still officially in force. The wider point is that Macau—with the likely acquiescence of Beijing—remains keen on containing if not actually cooling the growth of the market via capacity restrictions. The best-case scenario for Wynn is that the government relaxes the labour import restrictions early next year, and allows building work to begin (with or without gazetting). That way the property might just be able to open in 2014—after the expiry of the current table cap and in line with Steve Wynn’s original aim, announced during G2E Asia in 2010. Don’t put your house on that scenario coming true. In the case of The Venetian Macao, work began in 2004—a full three years before actual land gazetting on the eve of the US$2.4 billion property opening in August 2007. The crucial difference back in 2004 was that Cotai was still an undeveloped (and unproven) land reclamation zone— one the government was anxious to see succeed. Now the success of Cotai is clear to the entire world. In August, the four Cotai resorts (The Venetian, The Four Seasons, City of Dreams and Galaxy Macau) accounted for 27.3% of all Macau casino revenue. Work on The Venetian Macao started three years before land gazetting Old Versus New Macau is changing—and so is the government’s way of doing things T he latitude shown to LVS back in 2004 was also a glimpse of how business used to be done in the ‘old’ days of STDM’s monopoly. The government and business worked hand-in-hand with only a nod to the idea of public consultation. Nowadays, the process has become more politicised. That’s for two reasons.The first—as hinted earlier—is that nine years after the ‘Big Bang’ of casino market liberalisation in the territory, and the massive growth in gaming revenues, the presumption is no longer in favour of every casino project being nodded through by a grateful government. The second reason is that although the Macau public is nowhere INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | October 2011 36