Inside Asian Gaming

January 2013 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 29 IN FOCUS was emboldened to finally extend the face- up experiment to a live table it had designed to have real crowd-pulling appeal. Meanwhile, FAB’s use of the no- commission variant of baccarat also leads to faster play by doing away with the need for the dealer to calculate and subtract the 5% commission on each winning bet on the “Banker” position. The general rule for no-commission baccarat is that all winning “Banker” bets pay even money (as opposed to 95% in a commission game), except for a “Banker” win with a total of six, which pays only 1 to 2 (50%). As with face-up baccarat, casinos generally have been loath to push the no- commission version of the game despite its revenue-boosting potential for fear of alienating players. Sands China has been a lot more aggressive than the other operators in pushing no-commission baccarat, setting aside a large portion of the mass- market tables at Sands Cotai Central for it and holding its major tournaments as no- commission games. Given its emphasis on speed, FAB clearly had to be a no-commission game. The increased hands dealt per hour allow FAB to offer much lower minimum bets—HK$100 compared to minimums ranging from HK$300-500 at The Venetian’s other baccarat tables, whose minimums are in line with most major casinos around town. Mr Sisk claims, “FAB offers an exciting twist on the much-loved baccarat game.” While face-up and no-commission baccarat are not common in Macau, they are popular variants found the world over. What is perhaps most exciting about FAB, given its imposing presence on the floor and the marketing surrounding it, is it could help generate greater acceptance of those variants locally, which in turn would allow casinos to extract greater productivity out of their existing tables regardless of where they stand with the table cap. FAB also creates the exciting possibility of opening up a new customer segment, or perhaps even bringing one back—mass players disenfranchised by rising table minimums who now are able to make HK$100 bets again as long as they aren’t put off by FAB’s fast pace or unorthodox setup. “It is a priority for us to explore avenues to bring different experiences to our customers and ensure that we diversify our gaming offer within the market,” added Mr Sisk. “FAB is one big way we’re doing that.” Although trap doors, conveyer belts and float trays on glide rails are hardly cutting- edge technologies, their application to a gaming table is indisputably unique, and by enabling a small number of dealers to handle a relatively large number of players very quickly, they are the vital underpinnings of FAB’s ability to bring back $100 minimums on live baccarat in Macau. When offering such low minimums, greater volume is needed to cover the casino’s costs. And that’s the technical reason the tables have to be so big and accommodate so many players. Despite all the commentary on the table cap, none of the local casino operators express great concern about it. They seem sure they will be able to get the quotas they needforthenewpropertiestheyplantobuild on Cotai by working with the government, reallocating underutilized tables from other properties, and if all else fails, perhaps even implementing some workarounds such as installing more electronic betting terminals or oversized tables. The cap has been widely criticized as an arbitrary measure to control myriad variables—from mitigating the strain on Macau’s infrastructure created by the gaming and tourism boom to placating the central government in Beijing, which wants to limit the large sums its citizens are losing there. The local government has more recently taken to staggering future resort development by delaying project and construction permit approvals. Operators are no doubt counting on the government to allot them sufficient gaming tables in order to run profitably and support their lavish expansion plans. After having already held back their opening schedules, the government—reluctant to tarnish the city’s reputation for providing strong returns on resort-level investment—will find a politically palatable way to ensure they all get a reasonable table allocation. As such, while FAB does have value as a potential insurance policy against an inadequate table quota, it will probably not be necessary. A final point is that Macau’s gaming regulator clearly didn’t find FAB an affront to the table cap, otherwise it would have simply denied permission to install the four tables at The Venetian. After gauging player reaction to the game, Sands China plans to launch more FAB tables at its other properties. A final point is that Macau’s gaming regulator clearly didn’t find FAB an affront to the table cap, otherwise it would have simply denied permission to install the four tables at The Venetian. After gauging player reaction to the game, Sands China plans to launch more FAB tables at its other properties.