Inside Asian Gaming

IAG FEB 2023年2月 亞博匯 32 COVER STORY The first “real” issue of IAG , issue #1, had a cover date of October 2005 and featured the cover story “Critical Mass Under Construction: Making Macau ‘the place to go’ in Asia”. “Back then Macau was on the brink of change, but no one knew how big the market was going to be,” recalls Ken Jolly, currently Vice President and Managing Director – Asia for Light and Wonder but a senior executive with Aristocrat at that time. “Sands Macao and [Galaxy’s] Waldo had opened with amazing numbers but the question at the time was: is it sustainable and how big can it be? The next 17 years answered that question.” Quoted by IAG in our first official magazine edition published in October 2005, then-Venetian Chief Operating Officer (now COO at SJM) Frank McFadden described Sands Macao as “almost a laboratory” whereby company founder Sheldon Adelson conducted an expensive experiment. Adelson “simply designed something that was the antithesis of what was here before,” McFadden explained. “So by design they actually differentiated themselves from the market. Where you have low ceilings, we have high ceilings. Where you have dark corners, we have light corners. Where you have no entertainment, we have entertainment. Where you have a chair that has to be cheap and functional, we have design elements in it. “All those sorts of design elements made people come in and just say ‘wow’.” As the industry grew, IAG grew with it. Following the Issue Zero pilot and publication of issues #1 in 2005 and five more in 2006, we finally went monthly in January 2007 and haven’t Galaxy Entertainment Group opened its first Macau casino, Casino Waldo, in 2004. 銀河娛樂集團於2004年開設了其於澳門的第一間娛樂場——銀河華都娛樂場。