Word: melco
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...sister Pansy both started working in the family business but struck out on their own after the market opened up - in competition with their father. Pansy teamed with Vegas firm MGM Mirage to develop casino-hotels in Macau, opening the MGM Grand Macau in 2007. Stanley and Lawrence founded Melco Crown as part of a joint venture with Australia's Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd., founded by the late billionaire Kerry Packer. (Kerry's son James is now co-chairman of Melco Crown.) Citing a conflict of interest, Stanley later left the operation to run his original casino company, Sociedade...
...opened three months after the Crown Macau. Located on one of the enclave's outer islands, the Crown was too far from the city's other casinos to attract walk-in gamblers. In the month of its opening, the Crown claimed an embarrassing 1.7% share of the gaming market. Melco Crown lost money in the first three quarters of its casino's operations...
...Melco Crown ripped out slot machines and low-end gaming tables and expanded its VIP casino. But more importantly, Ho outmaneuvered his competitors by coming up with an unusual arrangement to ensure a steady flow of big fish. Macau casinos attract most of their wealthy clientele by working with junket operators, companies that function like specialized travel agencies. By maintaining close ties to high-end gamblers and often providing them with credit to bet, junket operators funnel traffic to the casinos, which pay them commissions. Macau has scores of independent junket operators, making business unpredictable. Ho figured...
...gambit worked. In July, according to Citi Investment analysts, Melco Crown may have claimed the largest share of Macau's VIP market. Now Ho's challenge is staying on top. The Macau government has announced that it intends to cap commission rates paid to junket operators as part of a larger effort to bolster regulation of the industry. That could reduce Ho's leverage, but analysts say Amax's financing power still gives him an advantage. "Once you've got the kind of critical mass Ho's got, it will be difficult to dislodge him as a true contender...
...success has come at the expense of his father, who has lost a large chunk of his high-roller business to Melco Crown and others this year. Ho says his mentor has remained supportive. "He's been great," Ho says. "Even when we weren't doing so well, he did give us advice. It's almost like the two of us have formed our own little casino association. When we have meals together, he looks at me as his son rather than a competitor - even though we go after the same piece of chicken sometimes," Ho says...