Inside Asian Gaming

insid e asian gaming Ja nuary 2016 4 EDITORIAL Steven Ribet We crave your feedback. Please email your comments to [email protected] . Inside Asian Gaming is part of www.wgg9.com Inside Asian Gaming is published by Must Read Publications Ltd +853 2883 6497 For subscription enquiries, please email [email protected] For advertising enquiries, please email [email protected] or call +853 6688 7214 www.asgam.com ISSN 2070-7681 Chief Executive Officer Andrew W Scott Managing Editor Steven Ribet Editor at Large Muhammad Cohen Regular Contributors Muhammad Cohen, Paul Doocey, Kareem Jalal, I Nelson Rose, Steven Ribet, Andrew W Scott Graphic Designer Rui Gomes Photography Ike, Gary Wong, James Leong, Wong Kei Cheong Founder and Adviser Kareem Jalal ◊ Chief Marketing Officer Derrick Tran Chief Operating Officer Michael Mariakis Director João Costeira Varela Administrator Cynthia Cheang Administrative Assistant Suie Ng Macau at the Crossroads S everal weeks ago on my first Saturday in Macau I went to see Lion’s Bar; the nightclub inside MGM Macau. Guidebooks said it had best live music in town. I don’t think the guidebooks were wrong. The American resident band there were the best I’ve come across in Asia, by virtue of their timing and sheer glorious musicianship. Yet strangely nobody was dancing. At odds with the casino outside, which was still bustling at a little after midnight, Lion’s Bar was more or less empty. The next day I recounted my curious experience to a colleague. “If this were Las Vegas that place would have been jumping,” I said. “You have to understand,” he replied. “Las Vegas is a party town. People only come to Macau to gamble.” Becoming more like Las Vegas is the foremost challenge facing Macau as it enters 2016. GGR fell by a third last year amid a slowing mainland economy and President Xi Jinping’s ongoing anti-corruption drive. Income from the VIP segment meanwhile, has slumped by around a half. Industry leaders hoping the government is going to help them with a relaxation of gambling policy are going to be disappointed. In a statement made on December 20’s anniversary of Macau’s 1999 return to China, Chief Executive Fernando Chui Sai On repeated President Xi’s demands for diversification. More income, he stated plainly, must be generated from non-gaming services. Less than 10% of Macau casino revenue comes from such services, compared with well over half in Las Vegas. Time and again, American entertainment models transplanted from across the Pacific have failed. The way forward must be innovation. New forms of attraction have to be developed to satisfy the tastes of Chinese and entice them, where the rock ’n roll in Lion’s Bar appears to be failing. In spite of today’s downturn, the rewards for hitting on winning formulas are potentially huge. Demand for leisure services from across the border continues to soar. Experts say around 96 percent of Chinese have yet to visit Macau. And producing non-gaming assets will be viewed kindly by the Macau government. I have lived, studied and reported in Greater China for two decades; in Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai and most recently Taipei. In my new appointment as IAG’s Managing Editor I’m looking forward to reporting on the progress of Macau as the nation’s premier leisure destination. I will use the resources made available by World Gaming Group’s acquisition of the magazine to build relationships with industry members, expand coverage in the digital domain and continue bringing our readers the inside story. Beyond Macau, IAG will continue to lead reporting on gaming across the continent, whether from developed economies such as Australia and Singapore, or fast-paced rising markets like Russia and Cambodia. We will also keep our readers up to date with the newest events in online gaming with our iGaming Blue Pages section. Big editions to look forward to in 2016 will be widely distributed at ICE in London in February, G2E Asia in Macau in May, G2E in Las Vegas in September and the Macau Gaming Show (MGS) in November. IAG will be attending all four. And September will see the 9th year running of our signature “Big 50” issue, profiling the most influential figures in Asian gaming and serving as the definitive industry Who’s Who. I would like to extend my thanks to Kareem Jalal, who founded IAG and built it into the region’s leading source of industry news and WGG CEO Andrew W Scott, who for the past two months has served as interim editor. With Macau at the crossroads, yet facing a future of almost boundless possibility, it’s an incredibly exciting time to be coming on board.