Pagcor – the government owned Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation – and its licensees generated nearly US$4 billion in gaming revenue last year. The Philippines could overtake Singapore as Asia’s second largest gaming market behind Macau with domestic economic growth and revived travel across Asia.
Local election that began Sunday mark the latest milestone that could trigger a decision on Japan’s casino license applications. The current legalization push has gone on for a decade, with two applications from Osaka and Nagasaki submitted last April for three available licenses.
So far, there’s been no indication of when the national government evaluation process will finish. Sources in Japan expect decisions will be announced in months, if not weeks, with the strong possibility of a new round of bidding for unawarded license(s) to follow the decision. But the smart money likely would have said the same thing a year ago.
No sunset in sight for Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs) targeting mainland China. (Photo by Muhammad Cohen)
In 2019, 1.7 million Chinese tourists came to the Philippines, spending an estimated US$2.3 billion dollars. China Outbound Tourism Research Institute CEO Wolfgang Arlt estimates nearly 1.2 million Chinese travelers will visit the archipelago this year, heavily back loaded toward the second half. That’s about two-thirds of the 2019 total of 1.74 million.
Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs) continue targeting mainland China, and it may cost the island nation couple pay a steep price. China claims it has a secret travel blacklist for countries that encourage its citizens to gamble, and a Philippine senator says his country is on the list. If that’s true, the cost of POGOs would be exorbitant.
On spending, Arlt says, “Nobody has a reliable way for a forecast.” China’s rich saw a 10% wealth decline during the pandemic, but pent up demand could overcome that loss, at least temporarily. Conservatively, Chinese travelers would spend US$1.3 billion in the Philippines this year, unless the blacklist stops them from visiting. Weigh that against the estimated US$80 million in government revenue and plus reported illegal activities that POGOs generate.
The end of China’s Zero Covid policy and new concessions for Macau’s incumbents don’t signal the end of its problems. The once and future top global casino destination faces a Beijing regime that’s skeptical, if not downright hostile, toward gambling. Switching Macau betting to mainland China’s currency, the renminbi, might help assuage concerns over funds illegally leaving the mainland via casinos.
Even in extremely challenging times, Macau got seven bidders for its six casino concessions. Unfortunately, authorities didn’t use their leverage wisely to clean up a glaring conflict of interest and remove an underpeforming licensee.
Promised casino operator non-gaming investment will be most effective if targeted toward comprehensive efforts among all stakeholders to boost Macau’s destination appeal. But absent a government mandate, don’t bet on that happening.
Batumi, the Vegas of the Black Sea in Georgia, has 11 casinos, an attractive seaside plaza and big ambitions. (Photo credit: Muhammad Cohen)
As Asian gaming remains muted with its post-Covid prospects murky, the time seems ripe for integrated resorts in Europe. Hard Rock International, Melco Resorts and Cordish are developing IRs a decade after Sheldon Adelson proposed creating EuroVegas in Spain with multiple resorts, casinos, golf courses and thousands of hotel rooms.
VIP room in Casino International at the Batumi Hilton. (Photo provided by Casino International)
Europe already has hundreds of casinos, most catering to local markets, along with a handful of gaming destinations with wider reach. Batumi, Georgia’s Black Sea Vegas, drawing customers from neighboring Turkey and the Middle East, has attractive casinos in international branded hotels, dramatic surroundings, great food and wine, plus expansion ambitions.
The world’s most admired casino resort, seen from Gardens by the Bay. (Credit: Marina Bay Sands)
As Macau continues to struggle under the zero-Covid regime, Singapore icon Marina Bay Sands keeps driving Las Vegas Sands’ financial performance. In an exclusive interview, MBS chief operating officer Paul Town explains how the common interests and shared purpose of the resort and its Singapore host community key the integrated resort’s lasting success.
Osman Yousefzada speaking at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in Bali. (Photo credit:Ubud Writers & Readers Festival 2022)
“Reformed fashion designer” Osman Yousefzada writes about growing up in a Pakistani-Afghan family in Birmingham, England, in The Go-Between. “It’s not the typical immigrant story of having a business degree and becoming a taxi driver,” he explained at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in Bali. “My story is completely different.”
Yousefzada’s parents weren’t literate in any language and lived according to ancestral ultra conservative Muslim traditions. His sisters were taken out of school at age 10, and his mother hardly ever left the house, where she ran a small dressmaking business, grounding Yousefzada’s career in fashion. As he approached puberty, he was increasingly shut off from women in their community beyond his immediate family, “removing the color from my life.” His family’s community didn’t like his book: “They didn’t want to show themselves.”
Margaret Thatcher’s bare knuckle capitalism attacked Birmingham’s unionized industrial base and, with it, Yousefzada’s father’s livelihood. “What Thatcherism took away, the petrodollar and religiosity replaced,” Yousefzada says. “When my father came to the UK in the 1970s, he looked suave, a sort of Cary Grant. Then he changed his appearance.”
With manufacturing virtually extinct in the UK, fashion production now resides in places like Bangladesh. Yousefzada traveled there and recorded garment workers’ views of customers buying the clothing they produce. “They believed their customers ate only fruit,” and wore clothes two or three times then threw them away. Rather than the Western mythology that anybody can become president or millionaires, a seamstress told Yousefzada, “I can only dream as much as I can afford.”
Now more focused on visual and performance art, Yousefzada approached fashion as an exercise in anthropology “about costume and space.” Making space for one’s self is a recurring theme with Yousefzada. “There’s a tug of war with myself: what do I want to call myself. I’ve settled as artist and writer.” Based on his Ubud events and The Go-Between, that seems to be a good fit.
Born in the wake of the 2002 Bali bombings, the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival return live to foster cultural exchange and boost recovery of tourism on the Indonesian island after more than two years of Covid crimped international travel.
With more than 200 speakers from 19 countries, this 19th edition of the festival runs October 27-30 in Bali. This year’s theme is the Javanese concept Memayu Hayuning Bawana, Uniting Humanity.
“I am proud to announce that the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival returns with an exciting on-the-ground program,” festival founder and director Janet DeNeefe announced at a press conference.
“We will explore the power of storytelling and the role of the written word to uphold humanity’s values and freedoms. With the world becoming more fractured, our lives more disturbed, we will ask: how can we unite the many strands of different cultures and perspectives to create, deeper understanding, mutual respect, and equality?”
Balinese novelist and poet Putu Oka Sukanto, whose work examines Indonesia’s authoritarian past, has received the festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award. “This award strengthens my determination to write and work for those that are left out and those that are marginalized by power,” Sukanto said in thanking the festival for the award.
Puteri Indonesia (Miss Universe Indonesia) 2022 Laksmi DeNeefe Suardana will bring her advocacy for literacy to the program. Daughter of the festival founder, Suardana said, “I’ve been with the festival since the beginning, and it has had a huge impact on me. I want to provide equal opportunities for Indonesian children.”
The festival is an annual highlight of the Bali calendar. As a fan and multiyear participant, I congratulate DeNeefe and her team for weathering Covid, and hope the festival continues to thrive as a forum for ideas and dialogue.
Muhammad Cohen 