Inside Asian Gaming

JULY 2018 INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 35 With the opening of its new luxury hotel at City of Dreams in June, Melco Resorts is looking to take control of Macau’s lucrative premium mass segment. no doubt the gaming offering at Morpheus reflects this high-end aim. Despite being granted no new-to-market gaming tables by Macau’s gaming regulator (the DICJ) for Morpheus’ launch, due to a government cap on the number of tables issued each year, the company has been allowed to move 40 tables from its existing allocation. Of those, 12 are now located inside Morpheus’ VIP room, Li Yíng Club, with bets ranging from a minimum of between HK$3,000 and HK$10,000 up to maximum bets of HK$3 million. Another 12 high-end premium mass tables are located on the 42nd floor’s gaming space with minimum bets of HK$20,000 and maximums of HK$2.5 million, with the remainder used as mass market tables on the 2nd floor. Notably, analysts from brokerage Bernstein say the lack of new-to-market tables is “not relevant as Melco has plenty of underutilized tables to reallocate to better use.” FEATURES By Ben Blaschke “You can build 770 rooms with US$300 million. You don’t need to spend US$1.1 billion and you don’t need the amount of collaborators we had.” – Lawrence Ho