Macau’s medium-to-long term prospects as a gaming market are undimmed despite the current downturn, says Gary Loveman, chairman and chief executive of Harrah’s.
His comments were made to the China Daily newspaper as Harrah’s unveiled its 18-hole Caesar’s Golf Macau facility at Cotai just before Christmas. Harrah’s has reportedly spent HKD200 million upgrading the course.
Mr Loveman’s warm words do though raise the question as to why Harrah’s didn’t try harder to get a casino licence the first time around if Macau is indeed as wonderful as he suggests.
But in the spirit of New Year goodwill, Asian Gaming Intelligence will allow Mr Loveman—the owner of probably the world’s most expensive golf course, a 175 acre plot the lease of which was acquired from a Taiwanese entrepreneur in late 2007—his two cents of commentary.
“This is the largest and most prosperous gaming destination in the world and we think it will widen its leadership over time,” Mr Loveman stated in another interview to mark the course opening.
“The market is likely to go through a maturation to Macau 2.0,” he added prophetically.
Exactly what Mr Loveman has in mind for Harrah’s contribution to ‘Macau 2.0’ isn’t entirely clear, though medical tourism and theme parks were apparently referred to in one conversation with journalists.
Harrah’s investors would certainly welcome a money-spinning new scheme in Macau, especially if it avoided the need for one of those troublesome gaming licences that can cause such a lot of litigation and heartache for companies. Although Harrah’s has never officially confirmed the price it paid for its golf course, at the time the bill was widely reported as USD575 million, which some wag worked out was USD31.9 million per hole. It is though the second biggest parcel of land on Cotai after that granted to LVS, so the course could potentially be converted to miniature crazy golf at a later date to make way for a higher yield leisure operation.
Mr Loveman’s comments about medical tourism and theme parks reminds AGI of what Robert de Niro’s character Sam ‘Ace’ Rothstein says about modern Las Vegas in the 1995 film Casino.
“Today it looks like Disneyland. And while the kids play cardboard pirates, mommy and daddy drop the house payments and junior’s college money on the poker slots.
“You get a whale show up with four million in a suitcase, and some twenty-five-year-old hotel school kid is gonna want his social security number.”
AGI doubts the US government’s Medicare system would pay for the sort of medical tourism potentially on offer at Cotai. And the medical insurance companies would need to be careful not to advance cash to policy holders to pay for treatment, otherwise granny could be forced to wait a bit longer for that hip replacement.
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