Inside Asian Gaming

inside asian gaming February 2015 24 Singapore’s SuperModel Five years on, the city-state’s integrated resorts remain Asia’s benchmarks, but Singapore and its casino operators face mounting challenges By Muhammad Cohen Cover Story restaurants. Gaming taxes, including the levy on Singaporeans who enter casinos, generate hundreds of millions annually for public coffers. Singapore’s IR success shows in the financial reports of operators Las Vegas Sands and Genting Group subsidiary Genting Singapore. Teetering on the brink of bankruptcy in 2008, LVS took criticism in Macau for continuing work in Singapore after suspending construction on Sands Cotai Central; the company was accused of investing Macau profits overseas, an allegation LVS Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson vehemently denied. Indisputably, Singapore profits helped LVS rebound to become the world’s largest gaming company by market cap and fuel its Macau expansion. Before Sentosa, Genting’s gaming portfolio consisted mainly of a profitable monopoly casino in Malaysia and cruise ships, along with largely unfulfilled ambitions to expand overseas. Success in Singapore kicked off Executive Chairman and CEO Lim Thay Kok’s dream of making Genting a global player; the most audacious of its expansion plans is the proposed US$4 billion Resorts World Las Vegas. Singapore’s integrated-resort model has inspired governments across Asia seeking a boost in tourist arrivals and tax revenue. It’s seen as the inspiration for the South Korean government’s licensing of four $1 billion-plus integrated resorts at Incheon, on the doorstep T he success of Singapore’s integrated resorts is evident all over town. Marina Bay Sands’ three sloping towers linked by the rooftop SkyPark have become the city- state’s architectural signature. Resorts World Sentosa’s Universal Studios theme park has helped drive a tourism boom, with visitor arrivals up two-thirds and their spending virtually doubled since 2009. IR celebrity chefs stirred a boom in top notch