Inside Asian Gaming

inside asian gaming December 2016 6 Cover Story A s the saying goes, “With great risk comes great reward.” Yet rarely are the extremes so disparate as in the casino gaming industry. Fourteen years after the liberalization of the Macau gaming industry, Caesars Entertainment Corp. is still paying the price for failing to secure one of the six Macau licenses being offered at the time, while the likes of Sands and Wynn have spent most of those years laughing all the way to the bank. Macau’s incredible success, which saw gross gaming revenue rise from US$3.6 billion in 2003 to more than US$45 billion 10 years later, has resulted in operators from around the world – both old and new – looking for Asia’s next emerging market in the hope of finding their own golden goose. But for all the upside should they succeed, entering new and largely untested markets can be fraught with danger. “If you’re a company that really looks towards emerging markets or frontier markets it is very different to an established market like Singapore, Macau or Las Vegas,” explains Tim McNally, Chairman of NagaCorp, which opened Cambodia’s only integrated The Macau success story has seen operators turn their focus to Asia’s emerging markets in search of their own golden moment. But with untested waters come unexpected challenges. By Ben Blaschke The pros and cons of emerging markets Digging for gold