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twitterCasino venue in Singapore will have Las Vegas flavor
courtesy las vegas sands
An undated handout photo shows the lifting of the steel structural pieces of the Sands SkyPark to the top of the hotel towers at Las Vegas Sands’ Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resort in Singapore, provided to the media on Oct. 14. A 360-ton steel structure will form a bridge between two of the hotel towers.
Fri, Nov 27, 2009 (3 a.m.)
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The world’s newest gaming venue will be halfway around the world, but a Las Vegas company will be in the center of the competition.
Experts are saying Las Vegas Sands’ Marina Bay Sands will likely be the more visible and more enduring property of two that will open in Singapore in 2010’s first quarter.
Singapore reversed a 40-year ban on gambling in 2005 and invited developers worldwide to bid to build integrated resorts on two sites.
The $5.4 billion Marina Bay Sands on Singapore’s waterfront will include three 55-story towers housing 2,500 suites, capped by a rooftop terrace. As in Las Vegas, where the company operates the Venetian and Palazzo, and in Macau, home of the massive Venetian Macau, the Marina Bay Sands will have a major convention center as well as two theaters, a retail center, a museum and a casino.
Marina Bay’s competitor will be the $4.2 billion Resorts World at Sentosa, developed by Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-based Genting Group. The resort on Sentosa Island off the southern coast of Singapore will incorporate six hotels of varying themes around the centerpiece of the development — Asia’s only Universal Studios theme park. Resorts World will have a water park, a maritime museum, a theater featuring an Asian cultural show, a retail district, a conference center and a casino.
Although the resort on Sentosa Island — accessible by ferry or a recently completed transport system on a covered boardwalk — is expected to generate considerable buzz in Southeast Asia and be a more popular attraction initially. Analysts say the Sands should have more to offer in the long run.
“Theme parks quickly wear out, so a casino-theme park marriage should lose its appeal over time,” Grant Chum, head of China research for UBS Investment Bank, said at last week’s Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas.
“The Sands’ casino-convention center development is an easier marriage, and I think that has been validated by the company’s success in Las Vegas,” he said.
Chum added that the company already has connections with UNLV and the relationship should be enhanced through UNLV’s Singapore campus, which issued its first hotel administration and hospitality administration degrees in June.
Singapore has high hopes for the addition of the two integrated resorts.
The island city-state at the southern end of the Malay Peninsula draws more than 9 million visitors, mostly from Indonesia, China and Australia, adding more than $12 billion in Singapore dollars ($7.2 billion U.S.) to its economy.
Margaret Teo, assistant CEO of development for the Singapore Tourism Board, said the resorts are expected to attract 2 million to 3 million more visitors and generate $1.9 billion (U.S.) to the economy by 2015.
Teo thinks the addition of the resorts will expand Singapore’s tourism market to India, where fans of Bollywood movies should find some appeal in Genting’s Universal Studios theme park.
The gaming component of Singapore’s new resorts will be carefully watched.
Fredric Gushin, managing director of Linwood, N.J.-based Spectrum Gaming Group, an industry consultant specializing in gaming research, said Singapore will use a hybrid of gaming regulatory strategies from Nevada, New Jersey and Australia to monitor the two casinos.
Among the regulations is a plan to discourage local residents from playing — Singaporeans would have to pay a $100 ($72 U.S.) daily fee or $2,000 ($1,443 U.S.) annually to gamble in either casino.
The gaming tax rate on the two casinos is 15 percent, 5 percent for VIP players that deposit more than the Singapore equivalent of $72,000 to play in private salons. By comparison, Nevada has a 6.75 percent gaming tax, New Jersey collects 8 percent, Pennsylvania 56 percent and Macau, 40 percent.
Gushin said analysts will keep a close watch on how Singapore’s new casinos affect gaming revenue in Macau, which has been difficult to track because the Chinese government has relaxed, then tightened travel rules to limit the number of visits a Chinese traveler could make to the gaming enclave on that nation’s southern coast.
Some analysts are speculating that the Chinese could cut the tax rate in Macau to encourage the development of more amenities. It’s the amenities — not the casinos — that are most important to Singapore’s tourism economy.
The Marina Bay Sands casino is expected to house 1,000 table games and 1,400 slot machines.
The approval of gaming was highly controversial in a society where chewing gum and spitting on sidewalks are considered public offenses.
Teo said Singapore is optimistic that the Marina Bay Sands’ convention center, which will have halls that can house 2,000 exhibits or 250 meeting rooms that can accommodate 45,000 people, will drive business traffic.
The Sands will have two theaters, one that will house “The Lion King,” which has enamored Las Vegas visitors at one of the Venetian’s competitors, Mandalay Bay. The other theater will have a rotating schedule of headline performers.
Discussion: 13 comments so far…
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No doubt that they will be successful in Singapore. The only question is whether they can reach the point of profitability given the fact how many billions the buildings cost. The Marina Bay Sands is one off the world's most expenive casinos ever, so the question is whether there will be enough wealthy players dropping their fortune at the baccarat tables....and return to drop more.
The competitor on Sentosa Island is not to be underestimated. I agree with the comments that theme parks may get boring after a while. So it's important that they know when to replance certain rides and remodel the entire thing before it eventually will look like Coney Island.
Greetings from Switzerland
It's ok to discourage the citizen of Singapore from Gambling by setting up extremely high admission fees. The question once again is whether there will be enough tourists going to gamble at the new casinos. Since there are casinos basically everywhere in the world, it's not something special anymore. And I am sure the government will loosen up these restrictions to a point that Singaporeans will be permitted to visit the casinos several times/month and will have to pay lower admission fees, ...till the day that these restrictions will be removed completely. Such ridiculous preventions have been set up in other countries but did not change a thing. There will be gambling underground instead and Singaporeans will go to gamble in other coutries on the borders, anyways.
The theme park that was once behind
the MGM Grand is now condos.
Yeah that's right, mirage8, I remember that one. Was there once , and it was almost empty. no wait on the rides. was a cool thing. The Resorts World Sentosa is a completely different thing, though. Ocenarium, Universal Studios, big roller coaster, and it's on the beautiful island of Sentosa, one of the few recreational areas of Singapore. If they take good care of it I think it will be something special and a real tourist attraction. The MGM theme park was just an annex thing of a casino among many other casinos. In Singapore, there will be only 2 casinos in total.
I wonder if they'll have chewing gum and non-chewing gum tables?
mred, you would be surprised what a great city Singapore actually is. With or without chewing gum. I am looking forward seing these casinos. Together with a great Singapore Airlines Stop-Over program and free casino shuttles to the resorts, I think Singapore is a great place to go in 2010.
Greetings from Switzerland
After all, it's one of the world's greatest gamblers, Mr Macau, also known as Mr M, the big Bellagio player, who brought up the idea to skip Vegas and play in the Far East instead. I think it's a wise decision. The future, as brutal as it sounds, is in Macau and Singapore. Vegas is no longer No 1.
will the dealers be caned if they make a mistake
This place looks like a magnet for terrorists...
ask Don Adelson. He's the man in Vegas. His Marina Bay Sands Resort will set new standards. The sky is the limit...at the Sky Park. Wonder what will happen after the first broken gambler jumps off the platform for a 450 ft ride.
Dear Editor, maybe you mean Grant Chum of UBS Investment Bank and not USB Investment Bank?
Do these developers think that there is a infinite amount of gamblers to populate these casino's. Now the gamblers from Singapore will stay home and not travel to Macau or Las Vegas.
Joelipp, they'll not be catering to Singapore gamblers. In fact, they're discouraging their own citizen by charging ridiculously high entrance fees for non-tourists. It's all part of the government's plan to take the money from the tourists or get gambling tourists to Singapore but prevent Singaporeans from gambling at their casinos.
Rich Singaporeans, however, dn't care. They will gladly pay 2000 dollars per years to get unlimited admission, although I don't think that they will really have to pay it. Perhaps they will, but certainly there will be a way to refund that money to the gamblers, as slotplay or comps or free gaming tokens for the baccarat festival.
What's impressing is that the competition company, Resorts World Sentosa is currently training their dealers and casino workers, not in Singapore, but on the Philippines!!! Can you imagine how much it costs to train in a different country and then fly the staff into a different country to work.
These "analysts" say that Marina Bay Sands might have an edge over Resorts World, and it's true that the Marina has a terrific location. On the other hand, Genting got the beautiful island of Sentosa fot its purpose, and if they manage to maintain a great marketing department, they will certainly get the families there. Daddy and mommy play in the casino, the kids play outside in the amusement park or go to see the fish and turtles in the ocenarium. That plan might work out for all of them.