Casino Oceanus, the new casino ‘mousetrap’ designed to soak up foot traffic from Macau Maritime Ferry Terminal, is to open on 15th December.
The new property from Dr Stanley Ho’s casino operating company SJM should benefit from seasonal traffic during the holiday on 20th December to mark the 10th anniversary of Macau’s handover from Portuguese administration to China, as well as the Christmas break and Chinese New Year in mid-February.
The USD560 million casino, with design input from Paul Steelman, is on the site of the former New Yaohan shopping centre, and has a walkway directly connecting it with the ferry terminal. It is unashamedly mass market, with no hotel and 260 tables and 560 slots. Most importantly it is much easier to reach by foot than the mass-market focused Sands Macao.
Oceanus is also only yards away from SJM’s VIP-focused Jai Alai casino. It’s part of SJM’s strategic plan, announced at the time of its IPO on the Hong Kong bourse last year, to create clusters of properties around the Macau peninsula. Recent market research in Macau suggests most visitors in this gambling focused and day-trip focused market commit 60 percent plus of their discretionary spending for that trip in the first property they visit.
Bill Lerner of Union Gaming Research said in a note to investors this week Oceanus should be well placed to capture a significant share of mass-market customers.
“Beyond Grand Lisboa, Oceanus should be the second largest contributor of earnings for SJM. Not only will it be fully owned and operated (unlike L’Arc for example), it will have a more favorable margin profile,” he stated in a research note.
