86
Gaming
The government discourages Sin-
gaporeans from gambling, imposing a daily casino entry fee of S$100, or S$2,000 annually, on citizens and per- manent residents. Laws ban casino ad- vertising and direct marketing except to VIP players. Shuttle buses in residential areas
were thought to violate the spirit of the rules, if not letter. On September 10, the Casino Regulatory Authority banned all shuttle bus services within Singapore to both resorts.
Undercover junket deals Shuttle buses may not be the sole exam- ple of casinos bending the rules. Singa- pore has imposed stringent regulations on junket operators and none have been
Singapore versus Macau
“ I
’ve always felt Singapore has its own radius of markets, separate
from Macau,” Las Vegas Sands chairman Sheldon Adelson told the CLSA Investors’ Forum in Hong Kong last month, denying that Singapore’s casinos have affected Macau gaming revenue. The industry is in agreement.
Galaviz and Company managing director Jonathan Galaviz summed up the consensus: “The casinos in Singapore have not had an impact on Macau, and I would not expect them to have a substantive impact on Macau moving forward”.
OCTOBER 2010
openly allowed to operate. However, Macau Business has previously reported on unlicensed junket operators that are bringing in customers with the knowl- edge of casinos and regulators. Casino insiders say Resorts World
Sentosa is again leading the way, skew- ing both market share and overall gam- ing numbers. Singapore’s regulators, Marina Bay
Sands and Resorts World Sentosa de- clined the opportunity to comment. Some junkets bring players from
Hong Kong but most serve Southeast Asians on high credit terms with the ca- sino, according to Mr Ling. “Junkets
are here every week.
They’re here and they’re operating. They’re just unlicensed,” said an ana-
lyst who requested anonymity. “Resorts World Sentosa is doing a dispropor- tionate share. Genting has many years’ experience in a largely unregulated ju- risdiction. The [Singapore] government hasn’t been operating casino regulation very long and hasn’t worked out how to deal with it. If you’ve got a company go- ing out of its way to breach regulations, what do you do?”
Returns required Huge capital investment on all sides com- plicates the situation. Genting and Las Vegas Sands have together spent more than US$10 billion on their properties and are after a return. The resorts them- selves remain incomplete and are missing important non-gaming revenue drivers.
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