Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | September 2011 2 Editorial Inside Asian Gaming is published by Must Read Publications Ltd 8J Ed. Comercial Si Toi 619 Avenida da Praia Grande Macau Tel: (853) 2832 9980 For subscription enquiries, please email subs@asgam.com For advertising enquiries, please email ads@asgam.com or call: (853) 6680 9419 www.asgam.com Inside Asian Gaming is an official media partner of: http://www.gamingstandards.com Publisher Kareem Jalal Director João Costeira Varela Editor Michael Grimes Business Development Manager José Ho Operations Manager Sarih Leng Contributors Desmond Lam, Steve Karoul I. Nelson Rose, Richard Marcus James Rutherford, Sudhir Kale James J. Hodl, Jack Regan William R. Eadington Graphic Designer Brenda Chao Photography Ike, Alice Kok, James Leong, Wong Kei Cheong Michael Grimes We crave your feedback. Please email your comments tomichael@asgam.com Tinseltown Rebellion “Every day I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I’m not there, I go to work.” That gag by the American entertainer Robert Orben probably sums up how a considerable number of people feel about wealth and success—that it’s a means to an end (i.e. kicking back and relaxing) and not an end in itself. But for most of the people on our Asian Gaming 50 – 2011 , that’s not the case. They are driven by the will to be the best at what they do; in the most exciting and fastest- growing regional casino market in the world. For some on the list, that desire and will to win has brought them great personal wealth. But even those of more modest fortunes probably have a feeling we’re witnessing a special moment in resort-style Asian casino gaming—an age when the industry is young, confident, and everything is possible. The early stars of Hollywood in the 1920s probably had a similar feeling about their fledgling industry. A challenge faced by all emerging industries is how to balance energy and innovation with regulation. Here there may be some parallels with what happened in Hollywood. The infamous Motion Picture Production Code of 1930—popularly known as the Hays Code, after Hollywood’s chief censor at that time—attempted to bring the unruly teenager known as the movies into line. One of the most famous interpretations of the Hays Code was that when shooting romantic scenes—even if there was a bed on the set—one of the actors had to keep one foot on the floor at all times. The male lead Cary Grant became famous for his ability to spin 180-degrees on a piece of furniture—while draped around his female co-star—and still keep one brogued foot on a Persian rug. If Asia’s gaming regulators would like their licensees to keep ‘one foot on the floor’ at all times in terms of things such as financial transaction reporting on VIP players or the imposition of limits on new kinds of electronic gaming, then that’s understandable. But they shouldn’t be bounced by diplomatic chatter revealed in sources such as WikiLeaks into stifling the energy of the industry or the enthusiasm of the players. We shouldn’t confuse Western moral panic about Asia’s economic rise and about gambling per se with the function of orderly gaming regulation. Some people won’t be happy unless there’s a uniformed police officer sitting at every live casino table or until slot players receive a warning message about excessive gambling every 90 seconds. Asia can learn many positive lessons from the best aspects of Western gaming regulation. But the days when the white people turned up, planted a flag and handed down the laws are over. It’s Asia’s turn to make its own rules now. And those rules must answer the needs of the people and communities here—not the neuroses of Western lawmakers and regulators.