Gambling
Related Essays and Reports by Andrew W Scott
James' Crown expands and expands
…
June 1st 2007
James Packer has made no secret of
wanting to divest himself of media and focus on gaming.
With the opening of Crown
Macau last month and Friday's announcement
that Crown will be expanding
the franchise to Las Vegas, he is moving into
the world's top two casino markets. And
while he's at it why not build the tallest building
in the world? Yes, that's right, the proposal for
Crown Las Vegas includes an 1,888 foot, 142 floor
hotel tower. But Las Vegas Gaming
Control Board Chairman Dennis Neilander said Packer
has yet to apply for a gaming license, adding that
he recommends that new applicants apply a couple of
years ahead of taking over gaming operations.
Packer is really taking no risk with
the Macau venture, which he opened in partnership
with Lawrence Ho, son of long-time Macau casino mogul
Stanley Ho. Since Macau has been opened up to gambling
competition, it has seen a stupendous boom in gambling.
In the four years from 2002 to 2006, annual gambling
losses in Macau's casinos increased 255% from US$2.59
billion to US$6.61 billion. It was widely reported
last April that Macau had overtaken Las Vegas as the
world's biggest casino location. Analysts and journalists
jumped the gun, fudging the figures by only counting
the Las Vegas strip casinos (neglecting downtown and
North Las Vegas casinos), and also by lumping non
casino gambling losses in with the Macau figures.
Macau's 2006 total casino win was "only" US$6.61 billion,
and the real Las Vegas figure (including Downtown
and North LV) was US$7.63 billion. However, with the
release last month of the March figures for Las Vegas,
the magic milestone has been achieved, on the official
figures, in the first quarter of this year. The total
Q1 win of all Las Vegas casinos was $1.96 billion.
Macau eclipsed this number like a group 1 filly past
a tired old nag down the back straight, taking an
incredible US$2.15 billion from gamblers.
Where is all this money coming from?
Well, Macau is the only place in "communist" China
where gambling is legal. Go to any casino in the world
to find the racial profile of a big chunk of the world's
gamblers.
The following table gives some idea
of Macau's meteoric rise. It is all the more spectacular
given there is much suspicion of systemic under-reporting
of the Macau win, fuelled by a high level of Government
tax on casino winnings.
Total casino gaming
losses Las Vegas
|
|
Las Vegas
(US$)
|
Macau (US$)
|
|
2007 (linear
projection)
|
7,844,411,452
|
8,602,305,753
|
|
Q1 2007
|
1,961,102,863
|
2,150,576,438
|
|
2006
|
7,633,606,237
|
6,607,183,832
|
|
2005
|
6,990,346,604
|
5,371,017,521
|
|
2004
|
6,254,520,234
|
4,856,141,623
|
|
2003
|
5,655,919,695
|
3,361,907,556
|
|
2002
|
5,513,220,586
|
2,585,077,435
|
|
2001
|
5,597,509,591
|
|
|
2000
|
5,717,355,941
|
|
(Graph to be added soon)
©
2007 Andrew W Scott
andrew@andrewscott.com
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