Long established as the definitive list of the most influential figures and personalities in the regional industry, IAG’s Asian Gaming Power 50 celebrates its 15th anniversary in 2022.
When the Asian Gaming Power 50 was first published in 2008, we could never have imagined that some 15 years later it would have developed into one of the most anticipated releases on the Asian gaming calendar – with its very own glamorous black-tie dinner to boot.
This is the first year we have held the Power 50 Black Tie Gala Dinner outside Macau. The COVID-zero policy affecting Macau so badly was a factor, but we had been considering such a move for some time anyway. After all, it’s the Asian Gaming Power 50 so why not rotate the industry’s night of nights around the region? Manila was an obvious location for our first Power 50 Black Tie Gala Dinner outside Macau, given the Philippine industry’s booming growth not only in Manila’s Entertainment City but also in Clark and Cebu.
What began as a fun and innovative look at those who make our industry tick has evolved into an important annual insight anxiously awaited by all. Compiling the Asian Gaming Power 50 list is an intriguing, demanding, educational and exhausting task yet one that comes with enormous responsibility, as the Power 50 has become the undisputed and definitive guide to the “big end of town.”
Ranking the big boys (and girls) from 1 to 50 is a difficult challenge at the best of times, but one made even more difficult given the enormous turmoil our industry has suffered since the pandemic first emerged almost three years ago. The economic impact of the pandemic has shifted the powerbase across much of the region, with Macau clearly the biggest loser as it tries to ride out the COVID-zero storm. Of course, other jurisdictions also suffered during the pandemic, but most of them are back to near-2019 levels and may hit their high-water marks in 2023, while Macau continues to languish at revenues ranging from a low of almost zero to a high of perhaps a third of 2019 levels – depending on the government policies of the day. Those government policies can change on a daily or even hourly basis.
Some of the biggest stories of the year, COVID aside, have included Macau’s path towards new concessions, the demise of Japan (MGM Osaka aside) in its efforts to realize a casino gaming industry, the appointment of a new Chairman of PAGCOR, and the regulatory storm the two largest operators in Australia have faced. We’ve also seen the effective collapse of the junket industry. This has seen the departure from the Power 50 list of several junket leaders – most notably Alvin Chau. The Suncity boss entered the list with a bullet at number 8 in 2010. This started a 12-year long run with rankings between number 5 and number 8, apart from a brief hiccup in 2016 when China’s crackdown on corruption saw him slip to number 13.
As I’ve mentioned for the past few years, we’ve now seen the departure of Sheldon Adelson, Stanley Ho and Steve Wynn from our industry – the first two passing away after long lives and the latter well and truly removed both from the company which still bears his name and from the industry as a whole. All three were moguls who shaped our industry. In a post Adelson-Ho-Wynn world, leadership and power is not quite so clear cut. Mr Adelson, founder of Las Vegas Sands, played an enormous role in shaping modern-day Las Vegas, Macau and Singapore. He debuted in 2008 on the Power 50 list at number 2 – behind only Dr Stanley Ho – and claimed the top spot on many occasions including six years in a row between 2013 and 2018. During his lifetime he was never out of the top two. But as one generation of leaders passes, a new one emerges.
HISTORY AND INDUSTRY GROWTH
The birth of the Asian Gaming Power 50 in 2008 coincided with an evolution in the region’s land-based casino industry, coming 12 months after The Venetian Macao opened its doors in 2007. Since then, a small parcel of land measuring just 7 square kilometres became the richest place on earth, now home to nine world-class integrated resorts: City of Dreams, Galaxy Macau, Grand Lisboa Palace, MGM Cotai, Studio City, The Londoner Macao, The Parisian Macao, The Venetian Macao and Wynn Palace.
This hugely successful Cotai integrated resort model spread like wildfire across the APAC region. In recent years the Philippines has been Asia’s fastest growing market, with its four IRs – City of Dreams Manila, Solaire Resort & Casino, Okada Manila and Newport World Resorts (formerly Resorts World Manila) – making it a clear number 2 on the Asian gaming scene.
In Singapore, Resorts World Sentosa and Marina Bay Sands are now world-renowned landmarks and amongst the most profitable IRs in the world.

Despite the regulatory problems the industry in Australia has suffered in the past year or two, the product offering in Australasia has strengthened substantially,
with the impressive Crown Sydney opening its doors for gaming on 8 August this year and dominating the skyline of Australia’s largest city. Between them, the three major Australasian companies – Crown Resorts, Star Entertainment and SkyCity Entertainment – operate a significant stable of casinos and IRs.
In Cambodia, NagaWorld enjoys an effective monopoly, disregarding the multitude of small properties on the Thai and Vietnamese borders. Post-COVID, Naga should see its massive US$3.5 billion Naga3 expansion project progress towards fruition.
Paradise City, Jeju Shinhwa World and Jeju Dream Tower have introduced the integrated resort concept to Korea, and we should eventually see another two IRs open in Incheon.
Meanwhile, Vietnam is home to the nation’s first casino at which locals are permitted to gamble, Corona Resort & Casino, as well as The Grand Ho Tram Strip and Hoiana, the latter welcoming its first guests in mid-2020.
Despite such incredible development across the APAC region, only four people have sat atop the Asian Gaming Power 50 over the past 14 years. They are:
- 2008: Dr Stanley Ho
- 2009: Tan Sri KT Lim
- 2010 and 2013 to 2018: Mr Sheldon Adelson
- 2011, 2012 and 2019 to 2021: Mr Francis Lui
CHANGE IS PERENNIAL
The Power 50 list is not a place for people to rest on their laurels. While company longevity and/or executive tenure is a small factor, the list predominantly focuses on the activities of the prior 12 months. It’s all about “what are you doing now?” and “what have you done lately?” not “what have you done in the last 15 years?” As such the Power 50 list is very dynamic, with people moving up, and down, and on, for a multitude of reasons.
A persistent phenomenon during the making of the list each year is the “My business has grown therefore I should move up the list” fallacy. The truth is everyone lifts in a rising tide. COVID aside, most people on the list are managing businesses that grow each year, and just to maintain a spot on the list requires annual growth. Someone doing the same thing year after year and achieving zero-growth results will slowly slip down the list as the years roll by.
The glaring exception to this ongoing growth paradigm has been Macau, and this is reflected in the list. Many Macau leaders have fallen down the list, with the average Macau power score (see explanation overleaf) being perhaps half of what it was in 2019. Macau’s only saving grace was that pre-COVID there was an enormous gap between Macau and “the rest”. But that gap has shrunk substantially, and even vanishes when Macau goes into complete lockdown.
HOW DOES THE JUDGING PANEL DETERMINE THE RANKINGS?
We have been asked this over and over across the years – and continue to be asked. Despite the fact we’ve explained it many times, let’s explain yet again!

Even though the judging panel has become quite adept at putting this list together over the years, the task of ranking industry leaders seems to get more complex as the Asian gaming industry matures and becomes more nuanced. How on earth does one compare the sole owner of a smaller property to the brand new “hired help” COO of a much larger one? How about comparing a large property that is still in pre-opening to a smaller one that has been active for years? The CEO of the Hong Kong Jockey Club versus the head of a private casino company versus the President of a casino chain in Korea that doesn’t have locals gaming? And how should online and offline gaming be compared? These are the types of tough questions the selection panel of the Asian Gaming Power 50 wrestles with every year.
As with any such ranked list, there are always criticisms and objections, usually from those who feel slighted. We often hear claims of not reading the list or not caring about it, but we are often sent messages, sometimes directly but more often through surrogates, bemoaning the injustice of a perceived lowly position and lobbying for the following year. Some lobby us to not be on the list at all as they feel it raises their profile too much. But no one ever contacts us to complain about being ranked too high!
The rankings include a numerical “Power Score” for each person on the list. The calculation of this score is a mix of science and art.
Points arise from a number of factors including the GGR of the person’s organization, a weighted dissection of those points between the top senior executives with key policy control of that organization, adjustments for whether the person is hired or has a major equity position, their length of tenure, how active in business initiatives the person has been in the prior 12 months, the long-term gaming pedigree of the person, the jurisdiction in which he or she operates and many more. Some factors are necessarily subjective, but we’ve always assigned a points value to strive for as much objectivity as possible.

We do all this without any predetermined idea of where any person should or should not be ranked.
At the end of the day, in our industry the concept of “power” generally comes down to direct or indirect control of money. The greater the GGR controlled, the greater the power. But it’s not all about GGR, it’s about profitability too – as we’ve recently seen in Macau. While the SAR continues to outstrip other jurisdictions in terms of GGR, it’s also booking hundreds of millions of USD in losses each quarter!
And what, exactly, is control? It’s about influence, it’s about who is the ultimate decision maker, and sometimes it’s simply about who is the person everyone in the room looks to for answers. In the same way that a country is a country because other countries say it is, some people are powerful simply because other people say they are.
Finally, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank my fellow judging panel members for their tireless work and excellent insights. And so, without any further ado, we present the 15th edition of the Asian Gaming Power 50. Enjoy!
Here are some other questions that have arisen during the selection process:
What countries count as Asia?
The Power 50 list covers the entire IAG APAC coverage region, which we define broadly as approximately one-third of the globe – from Kazakhstan to the International Date Line.
What about non-operators who have a strong voice in the industry, like regulators, media commentators, analysts, academics, suppliers, consultants, gaming lawyers and so on?
Over the years we have carefully considered the power wielded by leaders in these industry sectors and concluded firstly that it was impossible to include regulators (PAGCOR’s Alex Tengco earned his position on the list purely as an operator, not a regulator). Likewise, even taking the power of people in all the other sectors into account, it was only direct operators who made it into the top 50.
How do you pick between the owner/CEO and the COO of a company?
Many gaming companies have a charismatic and entrepreneurial owner/CEO and a perhaps more seasoned and level-headed gaming professional in charge as President and/or COO. By default, being an owner necessarily ranks many more Power Score points. After all, the owner can always force an appointed COO out of his job. But in some instances, a hired COO can effectively wield more power than their “boss” when the owner delegates a very large proportion of decision-making responsibility. The answer is decided on a case-by-case basis.
For the full list of 2022 Asian Gaming Power 50 winners, click here.