Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | December 2013 10 COVER STORY tropical farmland on the Coral Sea outside Cairns. His plan for Aquis, as it’s called, includes more than 5,000 luxury hotel rooms and upscale apartments and villas, a golf course, 13,500 square meters of high-end retail, a casino, of course—one larger than Crown Melbourne’s—and if it’s all approved (proximity to the Great Barrier Reef has raised environmental concerns) a 25,000- seat stadium. In Gold Coast, 1,700 kilometers to the south, one of the country’s most popular holiday destinations, city officials are entertaining proposals from groups that include Toronto-based Brookfield Asset Management, China State Construction EngineeringCorp., Chinapropertydevelopers Zhuhai Ridong Group and Auckland-based casino giant SkyCity Entertainment for a beachfront resort on a man-made island. Wavebreak, it’s called. It will include a hotel, a luxury marina and a cruise ship terminal and carries a price tag right up there with Aquis. Opening is slated to coincide with the arrival of the Commonwealth Games in 2018. Gaming figures prominently in these plans also, it’s their economic underpinning, not surprisingly, and the City Council has acknowledged as much, recently voting to endorse a casino at the site. Gold Coast also is the anchor of Echo’s position in Queensland. The 70 table games, 1,300 EGMs and 594 hotel rooms and suites at Jupiters Hotel & Casino generate the bulk of the revenues the company derives from the state. Then there is Jupiters Townsville, a much smaller property housing 320 EGMs, 20 tables and 194 rooms and now viewed as a non-core asset for the sake of the bigger picture, and it’s for sale at a reported asking price last month of $75 million. Down near the border with New South the Palmer Coolum Resort—plastered with photos of himself—with 100 animatronic dinosaurs. Though no gambling advocate, Mayor Mark Jamieson thinks his Pacific Ocean paradise ought to keep an open mind about the casino. Whence all this interest in Queensland, a mostly rural state with a sluggish economy and a dominant casino incumbent struggling to grow same-store revenues? Wales, just above Brisbane on the Sunshine Coast, mining tycoon Clive Palmer is floating a casino as part of his plans for a $2.5 billion resort in the commercial district of Maroochydore. The state’s richest man, he holds a seat in the federal Parliament under his own Palmer United Party. He’s reported to be backing construction in China of a full-size replica of the Titanic. He plans to populate the Hyatt in Coolum which he bought a couple years ago and renamed “We don’t have a compelling enough offer to attract people. You need to build or develop something at a scale that allows you to compete with the rest of the world.” John Redmond , chief executive, Echo Entertainment Hong Kong financier Tony Fung wants to build a $4 billion resort with a reef lagoon and the world’s largest aquarium on a patch of tropical farmland outside Cairns. His plan for Aquis, as it’s called, includes more than 5,000 luxury hotel rooms and upscale apartments, a golf course, a sports stadium and a casino larger than Crown Melbourne’s.