Inside Asian Gaming

January 2008 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 19 Casinos Critique to the dinosaurs—when the latter became extinct, it was the result of a global catastro- phe, not their negligence. Despite a flood of fantastic looking properties, new levels of service and other indicators of the modern world flooding into Macau, SJM somehow managed to retain much of its antiquated management struc- ture and operational style. As another industry observer put it, Lawrence Ho figured it was cheaper to pay US$800m to Wynn to acquire its own casino sub-concession than have to deal with SJM in the long run. And I would have to say that he’s not too far wrong there. Walk into any SJM managed property and the first thing you will notice is the lack of interest from the casino staff. Sure, they have all since been instructed to go through the motions of welcoming players to their tables, but beyond that, there is no real man- agement understanding of customer needs and service. The dealers still have to throw their dirty used tissues on the carpet as they are not allowed bins in the pits. Talk about unsanitary conditions and the perception it gives customers. Go up the ladder to the shift managers in black satin jackets—yes these creatures do exist, though rarely seen outside of their of- fices (red jackets are for the Supervisors/Pit Managers)—and you are looking at people who have been with the organisation their whole lives and has probably never touched a computer in that same period of time. There is no casino manager under the SJM system for individual properties. Rather, a regional manager controls 3-4 properties and roams between them at leisure. If your property is in the same region as another one belonging to either a buddy of Stanley Ho (e.g. David Chow of Pharoah’s Palace Ca- sino), or, even worse, Wife No. 4 (Crystal Ca- sino or Louvre), you are last on the regional manager’s list in terms of getting sufficient dealers or any other support. Franchisee quibbles There was the classic example relayed to me by a fellow colleague who was involved in one of the franchisees (property owned by individuals, casino managed by SJM un- der the 40:40:20 rule) where it took 8 weeks to replace a gaming table layout, a task that takes 15 minutes in any other casino. As he explained, the owner’s rep has to put in a re- quest to the SJMshiftmanager to change the table layouts. The shift manager may—after several proddings—thenpass on the request to the regional manager. The regional man- ager would,after a fashion,then recommend the replacements to head-office, which if it approves them, would then place the order with the supplier (SJM does not carry stocks, or at least that’s what my colleague was in- formed).The supplier takes about 3 weeks to print out a batch, then sends them to head- office who would then pass them down to the individual property. The story does not end there. Upon receiving the new layouts, the shift manager then has to contact an- other department in head-office to this time request the maintenance team to come out and install the layout, and this last activity would take another 2 weeks. I’ve heard if you want other supple- mentary facilities installed like a Forex desk or a Credit Card counter, you are entering another realm altogether. Apparently, each part of SJM is controlled by a different fam- ily of Stanley Ho (read different wife). If you wanted to replace the SJM security guards with an outside independent contractor, it is possible your wish would not be ful- filled as a mysterious phone call is made to your desired external sub-contractor who will quietly inform you your business is no longer wanted. House-keeping belongs to another family member, and treasury likewise. Each arm of SJM operates almost completely as totally separate companies, and the franchisee has to have very good relationships with each and every one of the family members or have a good strong contact inside the top echelons of SJM who can lobby on their behalf. The Grand Lisboa interiors are often accused of being a “cheap copy” of Sands Macau