Inside Asian Gaming

IAG JUL 2023年7月 亞博匯 128 10 YEARS AGO H indsight can be a wonderful thing. In the cover story of our July 2013 issue, titled “Crown’s Jewel”, IAG detailed the news that Crown Resorts and its billionaire owner, James Packer, appeared to have won their battle to develop a new high-end casino-resort in Sydney – making it the first city in Australia to shelve the nation’s traditional one-city, one-casino model. This much proved true: Crown Resorts opened its AU$2.2 billion integrated resort in Barangaroo, located in prime position on the Sydney Harbour waterfront, as a non-gaming only resort in December 2020 with casino gaming given permission to launch in August 2022. What we didn’t know at the time was the controversy this development would bring and the sheer chaos its presence would inadvertently instigate for the entire Australian casino sector as a whole. The ostensible argument behind a second Sydney casino was the need to provide broader appeal to the high-spending international tourist market, and particularly those from China. In a statement provided to the NSW state cabinet in June of 2013, Packer wrote of rival Star Entertainment Group, operator of The Star Sydney, “The Star has failed to capitalize on the opportunities provided by the