Inside Asian Gaming

February 2015 inside asian gaming 35 Cover Story Kong Beer Company, says. “That’s nothing” in one of the world’s most expensive cities, driving Singaporeans who want careers in hospitality, where frontline experience is crucial for managerial success, overseas to higher wage destinations such as Dubai. Mr Kimble recommends free-market Singapore “treat employment visas as a commodity and let employers bid on them.” He also believes wages need to rise. “For certain positions, they could use the Macau model,” Mr da Cunha suggests. “At least for croupier positions, say it must be Singaporeans.” With just two IRs, he says, Singapore won’t face Macau’s labor crunch. The Singapore Tourism Board says the IRs support more than 40,000 jobs, including 22,000 direct hires, most of them locals. Marina Bay Sands says it emphasizes hiring young Singaporeans and putting them on career tracks. Shadow junkets, stagnant revenue, increasing regional competition plus Singapore’s more welcoming stance toward foreign deposits and investments spur hope for a more liberal posture toward junkets. “If they dropped the daily charge and they allowed junkets, probably the revenue would be 40% to 50% more,” Mr Gore estimates. Some experts believe junkets breed crime, organized or otherwise, since their core activities include extra-judicial credit collection and skirting currency controls in players’ home countries. Mr Gore disagrees, contending crime is not an “inevitable” consequence of junkets, citing Australian casinos’ relationships with Macau junkets as an example. “Some innovation will be required to keep [Singapore’s casino revenue] growing,” he adds. “One possibility would be if the government could get the junkets to start from scratch and allow funds sourced from legal activities,” Singapore attorney and former civil servant Terence Tay says. “But at the end of the day, the realities of the industry will prevail. If a junket is going to extend $10 million credit, the government would ask them how they’re going to collect.” Ms Koh doesn’t foresee Singapore loosening social safeguards, since they’re half of a pact IRs made with authorities. “On the other side, they know that the government is going to do everything it can to develop the tourism trade, to develop the MICE trade. Everything and the kitchen sink is thrown at building up tourism.” Editor at large Muhammad Cohen also blogs for Forbes on gaming throughout Asia and wrote “Hong Kong On Air,” a novel set during the 1997 handover about TV news, love, betrayal, high finance and cheap lingerie. The absence of Macau junket operators significantly constrains gaming revenue potential. It also saddles operators with player debt, a risk junkets largely assume in Macau. Gambling debts can’t be collected through mainland China’s legal system, and those players account for about half of Singapore’s VIP roll.