Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

For casinos, Chinese New Year behind only Super Bowl

When Palace Station wanted to expand its Asian gambling pit, a consulting feng shui master said separating it into two sections would bring bad luck.

The casino followed his advice, knowing that for its growing number of Asian-born customers, the ancient Chinese tradition of feng shui is a spiritual imperative rather than an attractive way to organize furniture.

The man who made that connection is Rich Slack, who presents his business card face-up, using both hands - a sign of respect in Asian culture - and shoots the breeze with customers in Mandarin Chinese.

Slack, who lived in Taiwan for two years and traveled to several Asian countries to help Caesars Palace and other casinos build their Asian business, now oversees Asian marketing for Station Casinos.

At Palace Station, one of the closest big casinos to Chinatown, Slack has hosted cultural sensitivity training for workers and is expanding the property's Asian-themed events to include Vietnamese singers and a celebration of the Thai New Year.

He can also sing popular karaoke songs and crack a joke or two in Mandarin.

"It's a great icebreaker," he said.

Slack's attention to detail is just one example of how Las Vegas casinos are taking extra pains to make Asians feel welcome.

For years, the largest Las Vegas casinos have employed Asian marketing teams with native speakers and overseas branch offices to lure Asian-born gamblers.

The big payoff for those efforts will come on Sunday, the start of the Chinese New Year. The largest and most important of holidays for the Chinese is also the second-biggest gambling day of the year in Las Vegas, after only the Super Bowl.

But the implications of Chinese tourism for Las Vegas are bigger than any one holiday. Las Vegas casino executives are working harder than ever at nurturing a customer base made up of mainland China's burgeoning middle class - gamblers who are eager to travel and experience Western culture. With the explosion of Las Vegas casino brand names in Macau, Asian gamblers' appetites are being especially whetted for Las Vegas.

By 2010, about 100 million Chinese are expected to travel abroad annually, up from 35 million today, according to the Travel Industry Association of America.

It's unknown just how many Chinese visit Las Vegas, but the anecdotal evidence of a Chinese affinity for Las Vegas is startling. The Chinese National Tourism Authority says about 90 percent of Chinese visitors in the United States spend part of their trip in Nevada.

Las Vegas is the "highlight" of Chinese tours that also package stops in San Francisco and Los Angeles, said Daniel Shen, owner of Asian tour company Lion Tours USA in Los Angeles.

Driven by the casino industry, Nevada in 2004 became the first U.S. entity allowed to advertise in mainland China. Nevada tourism officials and casino bosses have aggressively marketed Nevada attractions in China, striking up relationships with travel authorities and running ads with little competition from other U.S. cities.

U.S. authorities are doing their part, too, by placing more visa officers at its embassies and consulates in China to facilitate travel from that country to the United States.

Casinos want the U.S. government to do even more, especially at a time when "we should be getting a lot more traffic here with the weak dollar," MGM Mirage Chief Executive Terry Lanni said.

The Chinese have a particular fascination with Las Vegas. It "symbolizes capitalism, opulence, fun and entertainment," says Bruce Bommarito, vice president of international development for the Travel Industry Association, the Washington D.C.-based coalition representing travel operators such as tourism bureaus, hotels and airlines. "China is evolving so fast in the pursuit of capitalism. They love what we are and want to be like us."

And they're eager to spend both time and money here.

The Commerce Department says Chinese visitors spend more - time and money - than other international visitors to the United States, with trips lasting two weeks to 18 days. Gambling also is an important facet of Chinese culture: Witness the generations of gamblers who have flocked to Macau, the semi-independent peninsula in the South China Sea. Last year Macau casinos generated $7 billion in gambling revenue, surpassing the Strip.

Caesars Palace was the first Las Vegas casino to identify the Asian potential, launching the industry's first Asian marketing department in the 1970s.

Caesars began celebrating Chinese New Year in 1975, and in 1983 hosted the first of its annual Chinese New Year headliners in the same showroom where Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. once performed.

Caesars is now offering Asian entertainment throughout the year, recently hosting a Korean singer and a Japanese comedian.

"Every year the business gets bigger and better," said Pauline Lim, vice president of Far East operations for Caesars Palace. Its owner, Harrah's Entertainment, maintains a 50-person Asian marketing staff and branch offices across Asia.

While the Strip's largest casinos also now play to the Chinese New Year, the newest, Wynn Las Vegas, was designed to attract Asian gamblers year-round. Asian travel experts applaud its feng shui design - from the curved walkways and circular entryway to the bright splashes of the lucky color red and the man-made mountain and waterfall that create a serene atmosphere amid the crush of humanity.

Casino bosses acknowledge Asian beliefs in less overt ways.

Mandalay Bay has no 40th floor and Wynn Las Vegas doesn't have a fourth floor ("four" in Chinese sounds like the word for death). Some casinos are careful not to put favored Asian players in a room with that "unlucky" number, instead placing VIPs in rooms with "favorable" numbers such as eight, six or nine.

Casinos also are aware of Asian gamblers' idiosyncrasies, such as not washing to maintain a winning streak, or not wanting to be bugged by casino employees while gambling.

Some casinos allow gamblers to put good luck charms on the tables while playing.

The goodwill, both subtle and blunt, seem to be paying off.

Baccarat, the favored game of Asian high rollers, has been one of the fastest growing games on the Strip for the past three years, even outpacing blackjack, poker and slots.

Last year, Strip casinos pocketed $832 million from baccarat, a 26 percent increase from 2005.

That was the year Wynn Las Vegas opened and the year Las Vegas Sands, which opened the first U.S. casino in the Chinese gambling outpost of Macau, introduced a high-roller club at its Venetian resort. The Venetian's Paiza Club, which includes hotel suites and private gambling salons, targets Asian customers and is similar to one the company operates at its Sands Macau.

Both Wynn and Venetian have marketing departments that cross-market their Macau properties in Las Vegas. Wynn Resorts opened Wynn Macau, a smaller version of its Las Vegas resort, last May, while Venetian expects to open a similar Venetian resort in Macau by the end of this year.

MGM Mirage has struck deals to build at least two resorts in Macau as well as a third partnership to develop hotels without casinos on mainland China.

China is "minting millionaires" who are now flocking to Macau to gamble, Lanni said.

The goal, he and others say, is to bring those well-heeled gamblers all the way to Las Vegas, year-round.

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