Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | October 2012 4 L aos was on its way to becoming the next Cambodia, even possibly besting its neighbor. Until a few months ago, it had three major casinos with sizable hotels, one near China and two near Thailand, and it had a number of border slot venues and minor gaming sites. It was a virtual carbon copy of the Cambodia hub-and- spoke model: a strong monopoly complemented by a wide range of other operations. Politics didn’t hurt. For a time, when Thailand and Cambodia were fighting a small undeclared war at the Preah Vihear temple between 2008 and 2011, Thai retail traffic started to head toward Laos rather than Cambodia so as not to show support for the enemy and to avoid danger. The main casino in Laos has been the Savan Vegas. It is situated on the Mekong River across the second Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge in Savannakhet, a border town about an hour flight from Bangkok. The operation, officially opened in 2009, has about 85 tables, over 500 electronic gaming machines and four VIP rooms. The main floor is 40,000 square feet in size, and the hotel has over 500 rooms. The other main gaming site in Laos was until recently at Golden City, Boten, in a 1,640-hectare special economic zone on the border with Yunnan Province, China. In 2007, the Royal Jinlun Hotel opened at Boten and at one point had an estimated 150 tables and 300 machines. Laos also has the King’s Roman casino, set in a 10,000-hectare special economic zone on the Thai border, and the Dansavanh Nam Ngum Resort, north of the capital city of Vientiane. But despite the good start, Laos will probably not, for the time being at least, be another Cambodia. In the span of a few short months, most of the casinos have been closed, sued or had their foreign partners kicked out. First, in the spring, the government unceremoniously shut down gaming operations in Boten after an incident last December in which Chinese gamblers were allegedly Almost Cambodia The Laos government appears to have adopted a decidedly unfavorable stance toward its casino industry, reports Indochina correspondent Rich Meyer Border potential—Laotian casinos draw players from neighboring Thailand and China, and could also tap into the Vietnammarket