internationalcasinoreview News ASIA & OCEANIA


happycamper VIETNAM


Las Vegas based casino archi- tect firm Steelman Partners has signed an agreement with Vietnam’s Khang Thong Group to be the designer and architect for the five-star Happyland Hotel in Vietnam. The 999-room hotel will


feature presidential and super suites as well as stan- dard guest rooms. Steelman Partners is also


the designer of the master plan for the Happyland Theme Park and Happyland Central retail district. The planned entertainment city will include the theme park, retail, dining, entertainment, several lodging options and a section for residential devel- opment - located on a prime riverside location in Thanh Duc, Ben Luc, Long An. “Happyland is going to be


a huge financial success,” said Steelman Partners’ CEO, Paul


Steelman. “You’ve got pent up demand for entertain- ment offerings in Vietnam, plus a friendly government that’s interested in tourism.” The US$600m Happyland


Entertainment City, pro- jected to open in 2014, is positioned to be Southeast Asia’s greatest tourist attrac- tion, serving the recreational and entertainment needs of both domestic residents and foreign tourists. Projections are that Happyland could


With many wealthy Chinese tourists riding high on the country’s surging economy, casino bosses in Auckland are looking to better break into the VIP Chinese sector.


Sky City to tap into China’s burgeoning high roller sector


highindemand NEW ZEALAND


As it looks to target a net profit of at least NZ$127.4m for the year to June, Auck- land’s Sky City is looking to tap into more gambling spend from high-rollers from mainland China. Takings from Chinese


players are up 33 per cent in the past six months and the casino is actively chase further spend from the sector to boost the market ‘many times over.’ The casino has reached


agreement with Air New Zealand for priority access to ticketing as well as working with Immigration New Zealand to ‘fast-track’ visas for ‘known players’ from the mainland, accord- ing to SkyCity’s interna- tional business president,


Ejaaz Dean.


In the five months leading up to November, SkyCity’s international busi- ness soared by more than 100 per cent with Chinese players topping the list, ahead of those from Thai- land, Singapore, Malaysia and Australia.


Dean said that most of what was fuelling the growth were coming from mainland China. With lavish rival casinos opening up in Singapore, Dean admits that Sky City has lost some of its Singa- porean clients, who now prefer to gamble locally. Dean added that having a dedicated sales office in Sin- gapore had helped in ‘redi- recting’ some high rollers back to New Zealand. He argued, however, that New Zealand offered things


that Singapore ‘cannot repli- cate.’ “We have great golf


courses here, we have great vineyards, and these are things that attract high- rollers here, rather than Sin- gapore,” he explained. SkyCity is set to benefit


from having 30 high rollers from China book to spend Chinese New Year, which falls in early February, in Auckland rather than in Asia. Sky City will be develop-


ing four dedicated private gaming rooms for these high-roller in 2011 to accommodate play from the burgeoning high roller sector.


Chief executive officer,


Nigel Morrison, said: “Sky Cityhas recently received approval from the Gam- bling Commission to create an exciting dedicated VIP


gaming offering, featuring new VIP villas and gaming salons on the top level of the SkyCity Hotel. This


investment of NZ$27m is to cater for both our premium and International VIP Businesses.”


Singapore rakes in US$324m in government tax


taxpot SINGAPORE


Genting’s Resorts World Sentosa and Marina Bay Sands are being tipped to post $2.8bn in casino revenue in 2010 and $5.5bn in 2011.


The success of Singapore’s two


The gaming floor at Marina Bay Sands


22 February 2011 • asia&oceanianews


casino resorts, run by Genting Singa- pore and Las Vegas Sands contributed S$420m (US$324m) in net revenue to the city-state during the April to


November 2010 period. The government’s revenue from the two casinos will be placed in a consol- idated fund.


The two casinos helped Singa-


pore’s gross domestic product expand 14.7 per cent in 2010, helping make the city the fastest-growing economy in the world after Qatar. So far, a total of 31,316 Singapore-


ans were banned from the casinos under exclusion orders.


US plans for Incheon Airport casino are off the ground An unnamed US company is mulling over the chance to develop a US$2.5bn casino complex including a five-star hotel and a convention centre on a 3.3m square-meter site next to Incheon International Airport near Seoul. The group, which is looking to open the facilities by 2015, visited the airport in late 2010 to check the commercial viability of the project and meet officials from the Seoul administration and of the Incheon Free Economic Zone (IFEZ). Incheon Airport is located on Yeongjong Island some 70 kilometres west of Seoul.


Steelman to design Vietnam’s Happyland Hotel


receive around 14m visitors a year and generate jobs for about 10,000 people in the province. It will include a leisure park, large-scale com- mercial center, 3-5 star hotels, water parks, studio parks, discotheques, indoor and outdoor theatre, restau- rants, shopping centres, floating market, the minia- ture world with many famous buildings in the world, Vietnam’s cultural centre, art museum.


Crown plays down jackpot refusal


onthecards AUSTRALIA


Crown casino has refused to pay out on an AU$8,000 jackpot after the player was found to have used her daughter’s loyalty card on the winning slot machine. Crown also said the 800,000 award points jackpot could not be converted into cash. The Crown Signature


Club provides points for every dollar spent inside the casino, offering patrons rewards such as free parking, meals and hotel discounts. Crown spokesman


Gary O’Neill said the terms and conditions were made clear to everyone who signed up for the rewards program. “On each machine in


that area, the rules of the jackpot are clearly stated, plus at the end of each row of the machines the terms and conditions are clearly explained and the vital term is you must be playing with your own card to be eligible to win,” O’Neill said. “As far as we’re concerned, the conditions are pretty basic and they’re pretty straight forward: to be eligible to get the points you obviously have to have your card in the machine. The points go on to your card. It is not a cash jackpot. You don’t get money for it.”


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