Russia has opened its first casino since its government banned gambling facilities nationwide six years ago. Located in the Primorsky Krai Integrated Entertainment Zone near the far eastern port of Vladivostok, the Tigre de Cristal casino has 500 slot machines and 50 gaming tables. Primorsky Krai is informally known as Primorye.
Macanese gaming tycoon Lawrence Ho holds a majority share in the US$500 million project through his company Summit Ascent Holdings. Other stakeholders are Taiwan gaming machine maker Finich Enterprises and Russian construction executive Oleg Drozdov. Drozdov began building the project before Ho bought in, but reduced his stake to 5% in April while under investigation by the authorities on criminal charges reportedly unrelated to the casino venture.
Primosrky Krai is one of four regions that will permit licensed gambling in Russia, and all are in border regions to target foreigners. Less than two hours away by plane from South Korea, Japan and northern China, Global Market Advisors, which worked on a feasibility study of Primorsky Krai, reckons its gaming revenue could reach US$5.2 billion in its tenth year. Today that would make it the world’s fourth largest casino market, behind Macau, Las Vegas and Singapore.
Summit Ascent plans a second phase for Tigre de Cristal, adding 100 tables and 600 machines. Also in the pipeline for Primorye is a hotel, casino, convention and entertainment complex planned by Hong Kong-listed NagaCorp. This should feature 100 tables and 500 machines, although NagaCorp says the project will not open until 2018, after a major extension to NagaWorld in Phnom Penh.
The star of the show at Tigre de Cristal’s opening was a fivemonth- old female Siberian tiger cub, which multiple media reports claimed was heavily sedated. The UK’s Daily Mail went so far as to claim local police had launched an investigation into the treatment of the animal.
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