Macao revenues outstrip Las Vegas
By Tom Mitchell in Hong Kong
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Macao has finally turned the tables on Las Vegas, overtaking the desert city's iconic strip as the world's largest gaming market.
Gross gaming revenues in the former Portuguese enclave on China's south coast reached US$5.51bn over the first 10 months of this year, according to figures compiled by the territory's Gaming Inspection and Co-ordination Bureau. That surpassed the Las Vegas Strip's total of $5.44bn over the same period.
Macao's heady growth has been driven by a series of new casino openings. These include a 270-table expansion at Sheldon Adelson's Sands Macao, the world's largest casino by tables, and Steve Wynn's first Macao casino, which opened in September.
Reflecting the investment mania that has taken hold in Macao, Melco-PBL's initial public offering on the Nasdaq stock exchange this week has attracted strong demand.
The joint venture between Lawrence Ho, son of Macao gaming tycoon Stanley Ho, and James Packer, Australia's richest man, is set to raise about $950m, assuming its shares are priced at the high end of their indicative range of $16-$18.
According to one person close to the IPO, the company could decide to increase either the offer size or its share price at a meeting set for this morning.
“Right now the pie is just growing and growing,” said Prentice Salter, a former Sands executive and managing director at Super Resorts, a Macao-based consultancy. “It's a once-in-a- lifetime opportunity. It's like going into Las Vegas in the 1960s and 70s.”
Macao is expected to extend its lead over the strip in the new year, with a host of major new openings in the pipeline, including Venetian Macao, a $2.3bn, 3,000-room integrated resort designed to turn the territory into a leading trade show centre.
