Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING FEBRUARY 2018 16 COVER STORY MC: Did Sands Macao’s site size alone lead to the stadium casino? PS: When we designed Sands Macao in 2003, we were given a long weekend – a Labor Day weekend – to design it. I was always impressed with the Chinese gamblers – how much they cheer and how much they back-bet. The only other place I’d experienced that was a little bit in France and a little bit in South Africa, but I was very impressed that they cheered almost like a team against the casino. So, our basic idea that we shared with [LVS Chairman and CEO] Sheldon Adelson back then was the stadium casino that would take around 30,000 square feet of an approximately 175,000 square foot casino. That in fact allowed it to be opened to below on multiple levels and have a 60-foot ceiling, which at that time was unheard of. There was some reticence on Sheldon’s part but at the end of the day they realized it was only a small portion of the casino, not the whole thing, so they allowed it to occur. It’s kind of funny, Steve Wynn called me a year-and-a-half ago and asked me, “How tall is that ceiling?” because he is now considering it in his Boston project – a higher ceiling – because he was the inventor, when we did the Mirage, of the idea that the ceilings had to be low. “The top casino in Las Vegas 10 years ago would make US$200 million to US$300 million a year, now the top casinos are making US$500 to US$600 million. It has doubled because of smarter operators, people working together and competition, but also the buildings. The buildings are designed to be more profitable. The hotel reception at Naga2