Macau junket promoters try casino ownership

As Macau’s VIP revenue continues to fall, junket promoters are moving into casino ownership in different ways.

Totally globalized native New Yorker and former broadcast news producer Muhammad Cohen is a blogger for Forbes and author of Hong Kong On Air, a novel set in his adopted hometown during the 1997 handover about television news, love, betrayal, high finance, and cheap lingerie. See his bio, online archive and more at www.muhammadcohen.com; follow him on Facebook and Twitter @MuhammadCohen.

Casinos look outside the box to attract millennials

As their customers age in the US and beyond, casinos need new thinking to attract millennials. They can take the success of an uber-hip San Francisco miniature golf course as an example of how Generation Y likes to roll.

Totally globalized native New Yorker and former broadcast news producer Muhammad Cohen is a blogger for Forbes and author of Hong Kong On Air, a novel set in his adopted hometown during the 1997 handover about television news, love, betrayal, high finance, and cheap lingerie. See his bio, online archive and more at www.muhammadcohen.com; follow him on Facebook and Twitter @MuhammadCohen.

Cities, developers often squander casinos’ urban clout

Global Market Advisors partner Andrew Klebanow says better design and regulation can help casinos stimulate urban development in a recent white paper. Macau has prime examples of urban casinos done right and less right.

Totally globalized native New Yorker and former broadcast news producer Muhammad Cohen is a blogger for Forbes and author of Hong Kong On Air, a novel set in his adopted hometown during the 1997 handover about television news, love, betrayal, high finance, and cheap lingerie. See his bio, online archive and more at www.muhammadcohen.com; follow him on Facebook and Twitter @MuhammadCohen.

Macau casinos take record fall in October

With mainland China’s enduring anti-corruption drive spooking high rollers and mass market players facing a smoking ban in the same old casinos, Macau gaming revenue fell 23.2% in October from a year earlier, the largest drop on record. Third quarter casino company earnings held up, but gaming revenue appears heading its first down year since the industry was opened to competition in 2002.

Totally globalized native New Yorker and former broadcast news producer Muhammad Cohen is a blogger for Forbes and author of Hong Kong On Air, a novel set in his adopted hometown during the 1997 handover about television news, love, betrayal, high finance, and cheap lingerie. See his bio, online archive and more at www.muhammadcohen.com; follow him on Facebook and Twitter @MuhammadCohen.

Singapore lets the games begin

The first casino in Singapore opens this Sunday. The US$4.6 billion Resorts World Sentosa project features the world’s largest Universal Studios theme park, six hotels, and, later, the world’s largest aquarium. Later this year, Las Vegas Sands, owner of the Venetian resorts in Las Vegas and Macau, will open the US$5.6 billion Marina Bay Sands as Singapore’s second integrated resort, featuring Asia’s largest convention center along with its casino. Singapore’s government wants the added tourist amenities; to get them built, it’s willing to tolerate the casinos, albeit with restrictions on size and some key operations. The authorities bent the rules to enable Resorts World Sentosa, owned by Malaysia-based Genting, to open its casino in time for Chinese New Year before the Universal Studios theme park is fully operational. As the developers struggle to make these obscenely expensive resorts profitable, the high stakes game to watch is whether Singapore keeps bending the rules in their favor.

Totally globalized native New Yorker and former broadcast news producer Muhammad Cohen is author of Hong Kong On Air, a novel set in his adopted hometown during the 1997 handover about television news, love, betrayal, financial crisis, and cheap lingerie.