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Macau Gets Las Vegas Gambling as The Sands Breaks Ho's Monopoly Our Articles and guides are available for the prupose of playing in the poker tournaments and the online poker rooms. all about the free online roulette games. learn the tactics and strategies for playing in the best roulette casinos. May 18 (Bloomberg) -- Manuel Joaquim das Neves, Macau's
Gaming Control Board director, is struggling with numbers. He has
a four-page list of new gambling rules that need to be passed and
a stack of plans for as many as 24 new casinos. Then there are 3.75 million tourists, more than half from
China, who visited in the first quarter -- a 25 percent increase
over last year. About 40,000 are in town now, awaiting today's
opening of the Sands Macau casino, the first slice of Las Vegas to
``Last year, if someone told me that growth would be so fast,
I wouldn't have believed them,'' said das Neves, 44. Las Vegas Sands Inc.'s Sands Macau may represent a source of
new revenue for Macau, the former Portuguese enclave that reverted
to Chinese rule in 1999. And it marks the end of a 42-year
gambling monopoly for Hong Kong-born Stanley Ho, whose 12 Macau
casinos earned $412 million last year, 50 percent more than in
``They've only scratched the surface of the demand,'' said
Marc Falcone, 31, managing director and analyst at Deutsche Bank
Securities Inc. in New York. ``Macau can grow revenue 25 percent a
The closely held Las Vegas Sands pitched a $12 billion, 20-
best Online Casino plan to win its gambling license, including an $800 million
duplicate of its luxury Venetian Hotel Resort in Las Vegas. Las Vegas-based Wynn Resorts Ltd. is waiting on credit
regulations that das Neves must frame in Portuguese and translate
into Chinese before it starts work on Wynn Macau this year.
Company officials will present the project proposal to the Macau
Galaxy Resort & Casino, a closely held Hong Kong company,
plans to open its first of three casinos, the Waldo, by the end of next year. And maybe a casino online in the following year.
``This is a tremendous opportunity for Las Vegas Sands,''
said Ron Reese, a company spokesman. ``It's the beginning of a new
Macau gets more than two-thirds of its tax revenue from
gambling, which last year accounted for 43 percent of the $8
billion economy, government figures show. Gaming was the main attraction for the record 11.9 million
tourists who visited last year. The 26 square-kilometer (10 square-
mile) territory, population 440,000, is the closest place for the
1.3 billion people of greater China -- including Taiwan and Hong
The boom follows Macau's decision not to renew Ho's monopoly
when his concession expired in 2001. China last year freed up
travel to Macau and Hong Kong. Residents of its richer cities,
including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, can now visit
China's underground gambling market is worth about $362
billion a year, according to Macau legislator David Chow. ``I
think at least 70 percent of our customers will come from China,''
said Galaxy Director Francis Lui, a property developer. Macau has room to make money for the gaming companies, said
Deutsche Bank's Falcone, who's visited twice. ``It's undercapitalized, under-invested in, with smoke-filled
rooms and gamblers five deep to a table,'' he said. ``It's a
culture shock for those who haven't been. It's a very intense
The average casino win per table per day is $22,000, Falcone
said. In New Jersey's Atlantic City, the No. 2 U.S. gambling
destination, the average is $2,600. In Las Vegas it's $2,200. Wynn
Resorts stock has risen 34 percent this year. ``These world-class operators will bring an improvement to
Macau,'' said Norman Ho, who helps manage $2 billion at Value
Partners Ltd. in Hong Kong. ``They are not new to this game. They
can bring proven models, nice setting, professional people.'' Until now, Macau's reputation has been anything but
The speck of Chinese mainland, with two inhabited islands,
was settled by the Portuguese in 1557. Its strategic position at
the mouth of the Pearl River estuary, a trading gateway to China,
made it a target for four Dutch attacks. All were repulsed from
After its ports began to silt up, and the British claimed
Hong Kong, 65 kilometers away, Macau declined into a sleepy
village. When Ho opened his first casino in 1962, Macau's main
industries were fishing, firecrackers and incense-making. Criminals followed the gambling money. Triads have fought
sporadic gang wars over control of casino VIP rooms and loan-
sharking operations -- most recently in the 1999 lead-up to the
resumption of Chinese rule, when 40 people died in shootouts. Wynn Resorts is waiting for credit legislation to be passed
before it starts building on a new strip reclaimed from Macau's
harbor. The law would regulate the way casinos give credit to
players, thereby marginalizing loan-sharks, the gaming board's das
Neves said. Steve Wynn, the 62-year-old company chairman and chief
Wynn Resorts offered 7 million shares to investors May 7 to
raise $268.1 million. The company said it will use some of the
``The Americans are concerned because Macau does not have any
regulations or law concerning gambling,'' das Neves said. ``In the
last 40 years, we've had a monopoly system. We didn't need to make
laws, regulations to control one operator.'' Legislation to combat money-laundering and tax evasion should
be passed next year, he said. Promoters who get commissions from
casinos for delivering customers will require a government
Other risks remain. While 21 companies bid for a gambling
license in 2002, Macau offered only three. They went to Ho's
closely held Sociedade de Jogos de Macau, Wynn Resorts and Galaxy.
The Las Vegas Sands operates under a sub-concession from Galaxy's
license, leaving it vulnerable should Galaxy ever be disqualified. Macau wants to develop more diverse attractions to attract
families and business conventions, the territory's 49-year-old
chief executive, Edmund Ho, said when licenses were awarded. Sam Ho, an analyst at Hong Kong's East Asia Asset Management
Co., which manages $600 million in equities, says he has doubts
that Las Vegas glitz will broaden Macau's appeal. ``The mainland Chinese people may not care about the image or
atmosphere of the casinos,'' Ho said. ``The culture is different,
and it's a different group of people than those visiting Las
That group helped make Stanley Ho, 82, a billionaire. He said
in an interview a year ago that he wasn't concerned about losing
``Why should I feel worried?'' Ho said in an e-mailed comment
then. As a young man, he had to fight off Chinese triad gangsters
and pirates who tried to take advantage of his businesses, he
said. ``All my life I have loved challenges.'' Ho's Hong Kong-based Shun Tak Holdings Ltd., run by the fifth
of his 17 children, Pansy, maintains monopoly control of the ferry
service from Hong Kong to Macau. He owns a slice of Macau's
airline, airport, horse-racing track and dog-racing track, as well
as real estate, Macau's biggest department store and its second-
Both Stanley Ho and Pansy Ho, 41, declined to comment for
``I think the competition inevitably will be strong,'' said
Galaxy's Lui. ``We are talking about doubling or tripling the
number of tables within a very short time. The belief here is that
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