Inside Asian Gaming

IAG SEP 2019年9月 亞博匯 30 COVER STORY US$500 million in debt, unappealing at a time when the acquirer is looking to reduce debt. Perhaps most important, as a foreigner-only casino, Caesars Korea likely falls short of Reeg’s “stupendous” requirement. Paradise City, launched in April 2017, has minted operating losses of US$55 million on revenue of US$578 million to date. “While still a good market in Asia, South Korea is a hard opportunity to move forward with because of the local restriction,” GMA’s Bussmann says. Bernstein’s Umansky believes Caesars Korea “will most certainly be extinguished” under the merged company. “HIGHLY SALEABLE” Former casino executive Howard Jay Klein writes on the SeekingAlpha website that CaesarsKorea could be “highly saleable” to an Asian gaming company. It may also appeal to a company absent from the region that, like Caesars, craves an Asian entry point. But Incheon offered two gaming licenses in 2015 and, after 10 parties expressed initial interest, it received only two completed applications and awarded just one license, to US tribal operator Mohegan Sun, developing Inspire, an integrated resort at Incheon airport. The second license remains available. Caesars had also been actively seeking a license in Japan, which analysts believed did meet Reeg’s “stupendous” opportunity requirement before the company's 28 August announcement that it had pulled out of the Japan race. Japan’s timing could still work in Caesars’ favor in the long-term. A recent report from CLSA says, despite Osaka’s efforts to complete an IR before the May 2025 opening of its World Expo, Japan’s first IR won’t debut before 2026. CLSA’s "It's Almost Raining Yen!" by Research Analyst Jay Defibaugh in Tokyo, and Japan’s timing could still work in Caesars’ favor ... CLSA ultimately expects 10 IRs inJapan, with the second wave of selections in the late 2020s. 日本的機會仍有利於凱撒的利益……里昂證券 預測日本最終將有10家IR，第二批甄選浪潮將 出現在廿一世紀二十年代後期。