Inside Asian Gaming

September 2015 inside asian gaming 55 Whether Tony Fung ever realizes his dream of a multibillion- dollar VIP mecca on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, his impact on the country’s efforts to cash in on the Asian gaming and tourism boom is being felt in profound ways. The 63-year-old Hong Konger, a scion of one of the city’s most prominent property and financial services families, isn’t lingering over the speed bumps he’s encountered on Queensland’s north coast. His Aquis Great Barrier Reef Resort has a provisional gaming license courtesy of the state’s former Liberal Party administration, but it’s locked up under a new and rather more skeptical Labor government in precisely the protracted approvals process you’d expect if you’re looking to drop the biggest tourist project Queensland, or Australia Tony Fung Founder and Chairman Aquis Reef Holdings for that matter, has ever seen—an A$8 billion mega-complex of eight hotels, a golf course, a sports stadium, convention facilities, dozens of restaurants, shops and assorted entertainment attractions and a casino with 2,250 live table and machine games—into one of the most environmentally sensitive areas on the planet. His bid to acquire a revenue stream in the meantime by buying the Reef Hotel Casino in nearby Cairns didn’t clear regulatory approval in time for him to qualify for a 2016 listing of the Aquis venture on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. No matter. He pivoted south, snapping up the ailing Casino Canberra in the ACT for $6 million, which means he can still sell equity and/or debt in Hong Kong when the time comes. And he’s spent the last year filling his Queensland portfolio What’s Your Next Move?