Inside Asian Gaming

6 I’ll Take Manila COVER STORY Kazuo Okada’s Manila Bay Resorts will be the largest of the four IRs licensed for the Philippine government’s Entertainment City gaming district—“an integrated resort that is going to stand shoulder to shoulder with anything in Asia or the world,” says Matt Hurst, the industry veteran who left Macau for his “dream job” running the giant casino that will be MBR’s centerpiece. FEATURES 30 King Content Aristocrat is on a mission to diversify in Macau—and to grow well beyond it—arriving at last month’s G2E Asia 2014 with perhaps the most expansive lineup of new games ever for Asia’s dominant slot-maker. GAMBLING AND THE LAW 26 Cuba Libre Before Fidel Castro, casinos flourished on the big island 90 miles from the United States. Now that the rule of the aging dictator has ended and his 83-year-old younger brother, Raul, is nearing retirement, it may be time to bring them back. TECH TALK 34 Forward With a Vision Not content with dominating the electronic table gaming market in Macau, LT Game showed off a varied assortment of exciting new products at G2E Asia. 36 Elegance in Innovation Alfastreet’s slick new Wiky e-table boasts a generous 32-inch interface that enables players to bet on up to four games at once. 38 The Gold Standard JCM refused to rush its iV8 tableside bill validator to market. It’s been three years of field research and extensive refinements in the making. It’s ready now for its close-up. 40 Premium Focused Abbiati Casino Equipment is on a roll in Asia and plans to release a set of new products designed specifically to cater to the region’s lucrative premium mass market. BRIEFS 42 Regional Briefs 44 International Briefs 46 Events Calendar Contents june 2014 IN FOCUS 16 Good Times, Bad News Transit visa abuses, junket misdeeds, crackdowns on illicit cash transfers—Macau has been getting slammed by negative headlines. But are the issues behind them overblown? FEATURES 22 US Casino Growth: a Mixed Bag A new report shows America’s commercial and tribal casinos generated a record US$66.2 billion in revenues in 2013. But it was a marginal increase year on year, driven mainly by jurisdictional growth, and the new competition has hurt existing operators.