G3Newswire ASIA & OCEANIA GAMING NEWS
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CHINA – GLI NAMES NEW BDM FOR GLI ASIA Gaming Laboratories International is again expanding staff in Australasia, naming Tom Chan as Business Development Manager in the com- pany’s Macao laboratory, GLI Asia.
“We are thrilled to welcome Tom to the GLI team. We continue to grow extensively throughout the Australasia region, and as tech- nology continues to advance and become more complex, our staff and our clients will be well served by having a develop- ment representative as knowledgeable as Tom on the GLI team,” said GLI Australia Chief Operating Officer Espee de Robillard.
PHILIPPINES – RESORTS WORLD BAYSHORE BY 2018 Travellers International Hotel Group, owner and operator of Resorts World Manila in Manila Bay, in the Philippines, has said the first phase of its US$1.1bn second casino should be complete by 2018. Travellers, controlled by Alliance Global Group and Genting Hong Kong, will commence construction on Resorts World Bayshore within the next three months with completion of the project delayed from the initial date of 2016 due to the turnover of the land.
Kingson Sian, President of Travellers International said of the details: “We will disclose at an appropriate time. When you open the latest, you would have seen what they have so you can do something that they don’t have.”
The development will be the last licensee to open in Manila Bay known as Entertainment City. Resorts World Bayshore will include three hotels in its first phase with the Westin, Okura and Genting Hong Kong Group all coming to the fore with a combined total of 2,800 rooms. This latest develop- ment will be three times the size of Resorts World Manila.
SOUTH KOREA SEEKS TO CONTROL SOCIAL GAMING – South Korea's attempt to regulate social gambling has resulted in a massive blockage of all the games available on Facebook. The operation started at the end of August with the ban on all financial transactions directed to Facebook games, and continued with the full block of all the games available on the popular social network.
Even if the move directly affects popular games such as Candy Crush, Dragon City, and Farmville 2, it appears to be part of Korea's plans to regulate the booming social gambling industry in line with the country's Game Industry Promotion Act (GIPA) adopted last December.
According to Korea's legislation, in order to legally offer their games to South Korean citizens, the games' developers are supposed to pay a state fee, and to submit an application in order to have their products reviewed and rated by the Game Rating and Administration Committee (GRAC).
Created to prevent the access of minors to games such as Zynga's Texas Hold'em Poker and to have something in place once also traditional poker rooms will decide to actively join the social gaming arena, the dispositions included in the GIPA de facto made the whole Facebook gaming platform illegal in Korea, since they do not make any distinction between the different games available on Facebook.
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SANDS HEART AND SEOUL PROJECT
Las Vegas Sands has proposed a Marina Bay Sands style integrated resort in South Korea allowing locals to gamble South Korea - Casino Operations
Las Vegas Sands has proposed a Marina Bay Sands style integrated resort in South Korea allowing locals to gamble to the government in Seoul.
George Tanasijevich, Managing Director of Global Development, and CEO of Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, confirmed the Las Vegas-based opera- tor was analysing the potential of South Korea as its next big project. He described South Korea as ‘a top development opportunity for our industry, for our company.’
South Korea is Asia’s fourth-largest economy. Mr. Tanasijevich said Sands was looking for a site to support Sand’s business model and has gone as far as officially proposing to the Seoul government that the operator build ‘a truly iconic building’ in Jamsil at the site of the 1988 Olympic Games sta- dium in southern Seoul. Meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions would be central to the plan.
Mr. Tanasijevich confirmed that Sands would look to relocate the baseball stadium, building a 40,000-seat dome, year-round facility that could be used for sporting and other events every day of the year. The aim would be to make Korea a
‘world leader in MICE business’ with a develop- ment boasting ‘iconic architecture’ making it a
‘major tourist attraction for Korea’ close to the area’s waterfront.
South Korea locals are only currently allowed to gamble in the government-owned Kangwon Land casino about a three and a half hour drive from the capital. GGR in South Korea came in at US$ 2.7bn in 2013, more than the Philippines’ US$
2.6bn but less than Singapore’s US$6.4bn
Mr. Tanasijevich said a necessary element for the project’s success would be the approval of locals to gamble which he said would dispel any suspi- cions. He added though that appropriate entry barriers could be applied to limit locals gambling as in Singapore but they would be critical to a project of the proposed magnitude.
He highlighted Sands’ success in Singapore where a model is used to protect the vulnerable to make sure that those who do play do so responsibly. South Korea is seen by several operators as being ripe for large-scale resort development.
South Korean operator Paradise and Sega Sammy Holdings are developing a joint project near Incheon airport, which is set to open in 2017. The two companies will begin construction of South Korea’s first integrated resort in October.
Genting Singapore plans to build a US$2.2bn casi- no resort in South Korea’s Jeju Island including 120 tables, 400 slots and 300 electronic gaming tables. Featuring roller coasters, hotels with castle-like facades and replicas of monuments like the Taj Mahal and the Pyramids, the iconic destination is aiming to be Jeju South Korea is home to 17 casinos with all bit one of those being foreigner-only casi- nos, half of which are owned by local operator Paradise and state-owned Grand Korea Leisure. Paradise said that Chinese players made up around 60 per cent of its player database, accounting for more than 80 per cent of 2013’s revenue.
Casino entrance fee proposed to discourage local players
PHILIPPINES Under new proposals put before the parliament, Filipino casino patrons who want to try their luck at any of the country's casi- no venues will have to spend P3,500 (€61) before entering the gaming floor.
House Bill No. 4859 filed by Misamis Oriental Representative Peter Unabia proposes to impose the hefty entrance fee on local casino patrons, hoping that it would make them think twice before gambling.
"It would discourage the locals from gambling in casinos," he said in the bill's explanatory note.
"Moreover, the amount realised in requiring entrance fees will serve as additional revenues for the socio-civic programs of the gov- ernment."
According to the lawmaker, a number of countries have already adopted policies that will deter their nationals from entering casi- nos, such as Singapore, Monaco and India.Under Presidential Decree 1896, a resident must have a gross income for the previous year of at least P50,000, as certi- fied by the Bureau of Internal Revenue, in order to be allowed to play in the casino. In reality, the requirement is neither observed nor imposed.
Singapore Members of the Japanese Federation of Bar Association (JFBA) recently visited Singapore to study how the Republic has been preventing and managing the social fallout from gambling. The association, which represents all 35,000 lawyers in Japan and advises the government, hopes to present its findings to Parliament before it sits on Sept 29 for a preliminary vote on a Bill to set up casinos. "It has been said that we are likely to model ours after the integrated resorts (IRs) in Singapore," association director, Koji Niisato.
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