For a while, the Big Story was how hot Las Vegas was. Then it was Macau: The Next Generation. Now that Vegas has cooled off a bit and Macau’s hitting a plateau, we’ve got a new story: Macau is in dire straits. Even Time has picked it up:

But in the wake of the faltering global economy, Macau is not such a sure bet anymore. The problem is that some of those giants embarked on overzealous building sprees — since 2004, the number of casinos in Macau has more than doubled to 31 — and now the global credit crisis is threatening to topple at least one of them. Adelson's company, Las Vegas Sands, has undertaken an aggressive expansion plan over the past few years, winning the bid to build the $4.6 billion Marina Bay Sands casino-resort in Singapore and developing a $743 million casino-resort in Pennsylvania, among other projects. The credit crisis has left the overextended company in danger of defaulting on $5.2 billion of loans secured by its Las Vegas operations. Last week, the company said it would work towards completing the Marina Bay site, but Singapore's government is making backup plans to enact if the Sands fails to raise the necessary funds to complete construction. Then, on Nov. 13, the cash-strapped company announced that it would layoff up to 11,000 construction workers in Macau, after its decision to suspend work on part of the Cotai Strip — a $12 billion undertaking. On Thursday, Las Vegas Sands' share price closed at $5.58, down 95% from its peak last December.

Dark Days Ahead for Asia’s Las Vegas? – TIME.

If you factor out the visa restrictions and other extrinsic factors, it’s hard to argue against Macau’s growth in the long term. Of course, all those extrinsic factors are what makes Macau…Macau.

I just wish that we could get stories weren’t so extreme. It’s always “this is the best every” or “things can’t get any worse.” Usually, though, things can get better, and of course things can always get worse.

But I doubt you’ll see a story whose gist is: Macau is a promising market but it’s currently got challenges that only smart operators will be able to overcome. It’s too nuanced, and it probably requires too many value judgments.

Interesting summary of the current state of Macau from Fortune, via CNN:

Hunter S. Thompson would have found much to fear and loathe in Macau, the former Portuguese colony rebranding itself as a gambling paradise. The good doctor (rest his soul) would have been vexed to discover that Macau, surrounded by water and crowded immigration checkpoints, is best entered by ferry, not gas-guzzling Caddy. No doubt he’d have been dismayed to learn that since Macau’s 1999 return to Chinese rule, hallucinogenic substances aren’t easily procured. But then again, when you can gaze at the Grand Lisboa casino, the newly built neon orb that throbs and pulses at the edge of the Macau peninsula like the Technicolor egg of some gargantuan radioactive monster, who really needs peyote?

Indeed, Western gamblers looking for something more exotic than Reno or the Riviera are in for a bit of a shock when they arrive in this smog-shrouded enclave. In Macau’s city center, the pastel façades of Senado Square and the ruins of St. Paul’s cathedral evoke Macau’s four centuries under Portuguese rule. But the frenzy of development elsewhere lends this Old World city the feeling of a frontier boomtown (albeit a relatively sober one: Macau’s hard-core gamblers prefer tea to liquor).

While Macau is now the world’s gaming capital last year revenue surged 22%, to $7 billion, vaulting the city ahead of Vegas – there are just a few decent restaurants and not much in the way of shopping or shows to speak of (yet). Still, Macau is a fascinating place to watch some of the most intense gambling around, both at the baccarat tables and amid vast, dusty construction sites, where high-rolling developers are betting billions.

The island was closed to all foreign competitors till 2002, when Beijing stripped local tycoon Stanley Ho of his monopoly over the island’s gambling concession, which he had held for 40 years. Faced with new competition, Ho (who also controls the lottery, dog and horse racing, the ferry and helicopter terminals, and the city’s largest land bank) rushed to gussy up some aging properties and build new ones. On a recent visit to his newest, the Grand Lisboa, a troupe of Russian street players performed slapstick routines beneath crystal chandeliers in the front lobby, while on the gambling floor upstairs, a trio of cabaret dancers shimmied in front of a giant oval of orange jade.

Ho’s offspring have also benefited from the boom: His son Lawrence partnered with James Packer, Australia’s richest man, and in May they opened the $500 million Crown Macau on the island of Taipa. MGM Mirage, owner of Las Vegas’s Mirage and Bellagio casinos, has teamed with Ho’s daughter Pansy to build a 28-story, 600-room hotel and casino set to open later this year on the waterfront.

Vegas entrepreneur Sheldon Adelson, however, is making the biggest wager that visitors here will want to do more than just gamble. After recouping his $240 million investment in the Sands Macau in just eight months (the cavernous casino set the world record for the largest number of gaming tables under one roof), he’s getting ready to throw open the doors of another Vegas outpost, the $2.2 billion Venetian Macau, on Aug. 28. The Venetian is the first phase of a truly mammoth complex slated for completion next year, which will include 20,000 rooms operated by five luxury hotel chains such as Four Seasons and Raffles. This so-called Cotai Strip (named for a bit of reclaimed land between the islands of Coloane and Taipa) will feature hundreds of yet-to-be-named restaurants and boutiques; a labyrinth of exhibit halls, performance stages, and conference rooms; and three Venetian-style canals plied by authentic Italian gondolas. The whole shebang will be sheathed in an air-conditioned biodome.

Around the perimeter of Adelson’s complex, Packer and Lawrence Ho have begun construction of City of Dreams, a giant casino and underwater theme park. Nearby, another group is building Macau Studio City, a casino-cum-multimedia-center that will include a boutique hotel designed by Shanghai Tang founder David Tang.

Macau now – July 9, 2007

It’s interesting to see how the idea that Macau is the leading gaming destination in the world is slowly filtering into the mainstream. I wonder if 10 years from now anyone will even have to say it.

It earns more in gaming revenue than the Strip, at least. It was either this or a post on Stanley Ho’s medical issues, and I honestly can’t think of anyway to properly blog on that one. From news.com.au:

MACAU says it has overtaken the Las Vegas Strip as the world’s biggest casino draw, raking in more than US$7 billion ($8.58 billion) in 2006.

The tiny southern Chinese enclave’s 22 casinos generated 16.7 billion patacas in the final quarter, taking the year’s total gross gaming revenues to 56.2 billion patacas ($8.83 billion).

By comparison, the 40-odd casinos on Las Vegas’ famous main strip – including the plush Venetian and MGM resorts – generated $US6.6 billion ($8.09 billion).

Macau’s renaissance from a crime-ridden territory with an ailing gaming sector was led by the Las Vegas Sands company, which opened the Macau Sands in 2004.

Other big American names to have taken advantage of the relaxed regulatory environment are Steve Wynn’s resorts and MGM.

Australia’s Crown casinos and Hong Kong’s Galaxy have also opened gaming centres.

Analysts tipped in October that the city had overtaken Las Vegas, based on earnings projections.

But today’s GDP figures are the first time that city officials have confirmed the historic development.

Gambling earnings have boomed in Macau since 2001 when the Government ended tycoon Stanley Ho’s 40 year monopoly on casinos in the city and allowed foreign operators to move in.

Macau punts Las Vegas in casino stakes | NEWS.com.au

There’s one thing I found very interesting: that in Australia, the Venetian and MGM are considered the major Strip casinos.

Another is that I wouldn’t describe Macau’s pre-2002 gaming sector as “ailing.” I’m going to quote from Roll the Bones here:

Rising from around 30% of the public revenue to nearly two-thirds of it, STDM’s gaming taxes kept Macau’s administration afloat throughout the 1980s and 1990, when Stanley Ho’s enterprises contributed around 80% of Macau’s tax revenue.

I don’t have the absolute revenue numbers at my fingertips right now, but that sounds to me like Uncle Stanley wasn’t losing any money on his casinos.

And congratulations to Hunter at Two Way Hard Three, who has the top Google result for “macau gaming revenues.” I can boast the top result for “casino carpet.”

I’ll get some interesting Google hits from that headline, I’m sure. In any event, Stanley Ho has opened his new casino, the Grand Lisboa. It’s next to his old flagship, the Casino Lisboa, and is dressed to impress. From the Washington Post:

Thousands of gamblers on Sunday jammed into a new casino owned by a local billionaire who is trying to fend off an invasion by Las Vegas tycoons who have been gobbling up market share in the booming Chinese territory of Macau.

Many of the punters who crowded into the Grand Lisboa _ shaped like a huge lotus flower covered in blinking lights _ were big-betting mainland Chinese who helped push Macau past the Las Vegas Strip last year as the world’s gaming center.

The five-floor casino is owned by Hong Kong billionaire Stanley Ho, who held a monopoly on gaming in Macau for four decades until 2002. The former Portuguese enclave _ two islands and a peninsula off China’s southeastern coast _ is the only place in China where casinos are legal.

In the past four years, some of the biggest names from Las Vegas _ Las Vegas Sands Corp.’s Sheldon Adelson, Wynn Resorts Ltd.’s Stephen Wynn and MGM Mirage Inc. _ have been aggressively building casinos, luxury hotels and mega resorts in Macau.

Before he opened the 3 billion Hong Kong dollar ($384 million) Grand Lisboa on Sunday, the 85-year-old Ho acknowledged that his market share slipped to 63 percent last year, and analysts widely agree that it will erode further. But Ho, who has 17 casinos in Macau, said his new flagship Grand Lisboa would compete well with the Las Vegas-style casinos because of his long experience in the market.

“We are the leaders, not the followers,” he said. “We know the city well.”

Ho is battling a common perception that his casinos are stodgy, smoky and plagued with surly service.

His new five-floor casino was decorated with plush red carpet and silver light fixtures with strands of crystal beads. The gaming floors have 240 tables and 484 slot machines.

The 52-story building _ with a 430-room hotel that opens later this year _ has a round base that looks like a giant Faberge egg covered in lights the flash red, green and gold. The design of its tower was inspired by the long plumes of a Brazilian showgirl’s headdress. The lobby is decorated with 580,000 Swarovski crystals, gold plated leaves and crystal balls.

Tycoon Stanley Ho Opens Casino in Macau – washingtonpost.com

Later in the article, the reporter claims that the Venetian Macau will be the world’s largest hotel-casino. At 3000 rooms, it’d be squarely in the middle of the pack on the Strip, so this must be a reference to the number of gaming tables. I should probably keep a page on the UNLV website with the top ten casino resorts in the world by room count, gaming positions, square footage, gross revenue, and whatever other metrics they use. But, time being limited, I don’t…yet. If I were to keep a list, I’d have to make distinctions that the casino operators–or the PR people–might not like. For example, will Venetian/Palazzo be considered a single “integrated complex?” If so, it would be the world’s biggest by room count, but, by that logic, should Mirage/TI or, for that matter, Excalibur/Luxor/Mandalay Bay be considered “integrated complexes?” I don’t know, but I’d have to decide if I wanted to make the list authorative.

Also interesting that, even as Dr. Ho’s market share is slipping (”only” 63%), the pie is getting bigger, and since real estate is booming and he owns much of Macau, he’s got to be getting richer.

As far as the casino itself goes, it’s got about 3 times the tables of your typical Strip joint but one-fifth the slots, if you need a reference point.

One of the things that struck me in Macau casinos was the prevalence of private VIP salons. Leased by junket operators, they give a share of profits to the casino but seem to be independently run. At last, there’s something in print that explains the phenomenon.
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I just couldn’t pass up this quote. Is xenophobia alive and well in Macau, or is A casino magnate just trying to articulate his vision for his company’s continued dominance?

“We are Chinese and we will not be disgraced. We will not lose to the intruders.”
–Stanley Ho

This was in an interesting story (with an opening historical misstatement) called Macau may trump Vegas (28-03-2005).

In a sentence, I’ve seen a lot and had a really good time here. I’ve also got a links to Stanley Ho and Steve Wynn’s thoughts on Macau.
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On Saturday, I’m flying to Macau to speak at the Gaming Industry and Public Welfare International Conference. If I go back next year, I might be able to say that I’m going to the world’s leading gaming destination.
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The rapidly-growing casino industry in Macau is gathering steam. From the People’s Daily:

Macao’s casino racked in 500 million patacas (62 million US dollars) in gross revenue in the first three days of the National Day holiday which began on Oct. 1.

Tuesday’s Macao Daily News reported that the holiday market has boosted the gaming sector. The accumulated gross revenues and taxes yielded by the gaming sector in the first nine months this year have surpassed the total amounts of last year.

For the whole of last year, the government collected 10.17 billion patacas (1.27 billion US dollars) in gaming taxes.

The newspapers source said that the gaming revenue in September amounted to 3 billion patacas (375 million US dollars), which were some one billion patacas (125 million US dollars) lower than the monthly income in the previous two months.

The newspaper said that the Macao Gaming Co. Ltd. owned by tycoon Stanley Ho held 67 percent of the market share in September, during which Macao’s first American casino the Las Vegas Sands Macao opened in May grasped 13.5 percent, and the Hong Kong-invested Galaxy Waldo inaugurated in July obtained 19.5 percent.

Industry insiders forecast that based on the current situation,the gaming sector would contribute 13 billion patacas (1.2 billionUS dollars) to the government’s tax coffer this year.

Holiday economy boosts Macao casino revenue

Though September may have been a disappointment, it looks like the October 1 holiday really helped boost revenues, which suggests that Macau is maturing as a destination. With a Mona Lisa-themed casino, what else can you expect?

I expect to learn more about the Macau market during a research trip there in early December. If anyone from Macau has advice for me, please contact me.