Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING JANUARY 2018 16 “Naga2 lifts the only casino in booming Phnom Penh into the top rank of regional gaming destinations.” W HEN I first visited NagaWorld six years ago, the casino hotel overlooking the Mekong River in Cambodia’s capital proved a pleasant surprise. From its Pan-Asian breakfast buffet to themed gaming areas to the spa with a jacuzzi in every treatment room and signature four-hand massage, NagaWorld exceeded expectations and demonstrated the business smarts that made parent company NagaCorp one of the top performers on the Hong Kong stock market since its 2006 IPO as the exchange’s first casino listing. Everything about NagaWorld seemed eminently practical and cleverly considered – everything except the company’s plan for a “Naga2” across the street, linked to the original via an underground shopping mall. NagaWorld’s then-Managing Director for Casino Operations and Property Mike Ngai described two towers, one with guest rooms for mass market customers and the other for VIPs, featuring in-room gaming, plus a theater seating thousands, hundreds more tables and thousands more machines. The plan brought to mind the underwater casino plan for Macau’s City of Dreams: a wonderfully appealing impossible dream. Fast forward to 3 November 2017 and the soft opening of Naga2 revealed everything Ngai, now the company’s Chief Marketing Officer for Southeast and East Asia, described and more, all in a compelling Paul Steelman designed package with a construction cost of US$392 million. That’s truly fantastic. COVER STORY A VIP gaming suite at Naga2