Inside Asian Gaming

IAG NOV 2020年11月 亞博匯 128 COLUMNISTS Genting is spending US$4 billion on its Resorts World Las Vegas development. 雲頂集團計劃斥資40億美元開發拉斯維加斯名勝世界。 T here are various methods jurisdictions can use to assess proposals for new IR developments. However, the most critical step in the process is not the evaluation itself, but the assessment model put in place at the outset. Before establishing assessment criteria for design, technical capability, financial capacity, social safeguards and all the other categories relevant to any judgment, there is an earlier decision to be made. Should the evaluation process assess inputs, outputs or outcomes? What’s the difference? Inputs measure quantity, but rarely quality. The most common input we see is the amount of money to be spent. For example, spending US$500 million dollars of government money to build a new hospital sounds 20% better than spending US$400 million. But measuring inputs only tells us how much is going to be spent and not whether it will be spent wisely. It is quite conceivable that spending US$400 million wisely will build a better hospital than a profligate US$500 million project. Output measurements indicate what volume of something is to be produced. They don’t necessarily advise of the usefulness of that product. Continuing with the hospital example, an output might be the quantity of new hospital rooms built or the number of treatments to be funded from that US$500 million input. At least this measure provides some ability to see what has been produced in return for investment of that money. Once again, though, it doesn’t explain whether such outputs will be useful or not. The best methodology is to identify outcomes. From the above example, a desirable outcome would be a measure of the improved health of the local community. It is true that outcomes can sometimes be hard to quantify, and for that reason they’re often not used. It is also true that for political and PR reasons it is often a lot easier to convince a community that the government is acting in the community’s interests by using input measures as an indicator of such action. After all, it is much easier to convince voters that spending US$500 million on a capital project is somehow better than US$400 million.