Inside Asian Gaming

January 2014 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 19 FEATURE Florida market. The Bimini SuperFast, as it’s called, is designed to shuttle players the 50 miles between Miami and the Bahamas resort in the daytime and to function at night as a party boat where passengers can dine, drink and gamble in international waters. It’s a business Genting should know well. It still owns 50% of Norwegian Cruise Lines, which it revamped over the course of a decade with $5 billion worth of classy new shipping. Yet it ran into problems with the SuperFast from the start. Within weeks of its commissioning the boat was docked by the US Coast Guard for failing safety and equipment inspections. Construction of a pier in Bimini to berth the shipwas opposed by environmentalists, who stalled the project in a Bahamas court for months. Last July, the SuperFast finally was cleared by the Coast Guard for sailing, and construction has since begun on the pier, which should be operational this summer. But transferring passengers from the ferry to a smaller vessel on the Bimini side has been a constant challenge, especially in rough seas, and the day shuttle has been scaled back to weekends only. Then came problems with the foreign workers employed on the night excursions. The workers serve drinks, take tickets and perform other duties not directly related to operating the ship. It’s a common maritime practice when international ports of call are involved because the workers can be paid less than US minimum wages and operators aren’t required to remit payroll taxes or adhere to US workplace and labor laws. The Customs and Border Patrol Agency contends that “cruises to nowhere” don’t qualify for this exemption because they do not dock outside the US and their passengers never set foot on foreign soil. In November, the agency issued an order halting the cruises. Genting complied, then promptly sued in U.S. District Court inWashington, D.C., to overturn it. The CPB is calling on Genting to fix the situation by hiring American workers. Genting argues that replacing the 250-member crew would be “cost- prohibitive”. In court papers filed in the Bahamas during the pier dispute, the company said it expects to lose $11 million with the SuperFast this year alone. Docking rights at the Port of Miami are costing it $7 million a year. In December, the company told the District Court that losing the revenue from the nightime cruises could imperil the entire venture. Resorts World Miami, a division of the Malaysian conglomerate, has devised a four-way partnership centered on the racino license held by Gulfstream Park, a nationally known thoroughbred track in nearby Hallandale Beach. A slots-only casino in Miami is a considerable climb- down from the $3.1 billion gambling destination Genting originally had in mind—a “less lucrative option,” as a lobbyist for the company puts it— but “Genting, over the past couple of years, has decided to look at this with a fresh set of eyes.”