Word: macau
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...Their time will come. The opening of the Sands Macau, a $240 million waterfront pleasure dome, offers Asia its first taste of Las Vegas glitz, and the casino will soon be followed by others like it. In 2002 the local government ended a 40-year monopoly on the gambling business, permitting two of Vegas' biggest gaming magnates to open up shop. The economic boom that has ensued is loud even by Chinese standards. While nearby Hong Kong's economy, with a total population 15 times the size of Macau's 450,000, grew just 3.3% during a SARS-marred...
...sleazy, sleepy city is certainly in transition. Before Portugal handed Macau back to China in 1999, its architecturally charming but rundown streets were lined with hookers and occasionally reverberated with gunfire and car bombings from triad gang battles. The gambling business?which contributes 75% of Macau's government's revenue and supports the city's only major industry, tourism?has been the exclusive province of Stanley Ho, an elusive 82-year-old casino-and-property tycoon. His company, Sociedade de Turismo e Divers?es de Macau (STDM), has not kept gaming operations in step with the times. The Lisboa hotel...
...Sheldon Adelson and Steve Wynn, two formidable American entrepreneurs, aim to transform Macau into a first-class tourist destination for millions of Asians, mainland Chinese in particular. Adelson and Wynn are credited with reviving Las Vegas' flagging fortunes in the 1990s by building a succession of spectacular complexes that combine hotels, entertainment and gambling facilities, among them the posh Venetian (Adelson's best-known resort) and the Mirage (a project by Wynn). Today, with separate gaming licenses from the Macau government, the pair are racing to duplicate their U.S. success. Adelson, 72, built the Sands Macau, so he is first...
...preferred by Chinese. A jackpot combination on specially adapted slot machines is the locally auspicious "888" instead of the traditional triple seven that wins big in the U.S. But no matter how Asian-friendly, gambling alone won't be enough to fill thousands of new hotel rooms. "Right now, Macau is for the gambler, period," says Wynn, who is planning to break ground on a $550 million hotel-casino he calls "the most ambitious in the Pacific Rim" later this year. "The trick is to add other dimensions to the town, open the door to people who haven't been...
...this frenetic construction just a gamble that a whale might make? Adelson doesn't think so. "Risks? I don't think there are any," he says. And he might be right. Half of the world's population lives less than a six-hour flight away from Macau. The city has always attracted gamblers from Hong Kong and a few high rollers from mainland China. Beijing is now allowing more Chinese to visit Macau independently instead of in tightly controlled tour groups. A surge is under way?the number of mainland tourists to the former colony nearly doubled between...