Inside Asian Gaming

July 2016 inside asian gaming 43 “We’re forecasting by the end of this year there will be 38,000 hotel rooms inMacau and46,000by 2018,” Fischer said. “Las Vegas has over 140,000. We see no reason why Macau, which sits on the doorstep of China with 1.4 billion people, shouldn’t have close to 100,000 rooms. If the Macau government said tomorrow that their new goal was to have 120,000 hotel rooms, I would say, ‘That’s a good idea.’ “You only have to look at the data points. In Q1 the occupancy rate for Galaxy Macau was 99 percent. It’s got 4,200 rooms and the average room rate is US$250 per night so if occupancy is running at that level and room rates are at that level, it means we have an under-supply situation for hotel rooms. “We would welcome the doubling of the number to 80,000 and beyond. It seems excessive but it’s not. It would take some rezoning but it’s not impossible.” The addition of extra rooms hasn’t seen any lowering of room rates just yet. Wynn Palace, which began taking bookings last month for late August, has all of its rooms priced higher than sister property Wynn Macau with a base-level room rate of HK$2,888 at Wynn Palace compared with HK$2,488 at Wynn Macau. Crown Resorts split their casino assets REGIONAL BRIEFS executive of Crown Resorts but will retain his majority share. He will remain Deputy Chairman of Melco-Crown. Crown has been particularly active in recent months, having already reduced its stake in Melco-Crown from 34% to 27% in May following two years of declining revenues from its Macau properties. Illegal football betting rampant during Euro 2016 Police across much of Asia were kept busy during the recent Euro 2016 tournament in France with hundreds of people arrested for illegal football gambling in Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia. Despite the Royal Thai Police (RTP) announcing the launch of a new specialty command center on the eve of Euro 2016 aimed specifically at identifying illegal football operations, Bangkok proved to be a hectic hunting ground with more than 1,000 arrests inside the first week alone. The vast majority of those taken into custody were gamblers although it also includedahandful of bookmakers andonline operators. In Vietnam, police busted a Hanoi gambling ring after it took a mammoth US$340 million in bets in just five days from 9 to 14 June. The 23 people arrested had come from both the north and the south and were found to be using fake names and addresses to avoid detection. Aside from the state-run lottery, Vietnamese locals are banned from all gambling but such strict regulations have led to a thriving underground scene – particularly during major international football tournaments. It’s a similar scene in Singapore, where gambling is largely restricted to the city’s two integrated resorts. Under the Remote Gambling Act 2014, any person convicted of unlawful remote gambling can be fined between US$15,000 and US$150,000 and be jailed for up to five years. Nevertheless, a series of raids conducted by the Singapore Police Force in late June saw 12 men between the ages of 20 and 52 arrested for providing remote gambling services to football fans. Computers, phones and more than US$200,000 in cash were seized. Police Superintendent Lawrence Eng said, “Members of the public are advised to resist the temptation of placing bets with illegal bookies and unauthorised operators, especially during the ongoing UEFA Euro 2016.” James Packer’s Crown Resorts has decided to split its Australian and international business interests in a demerger aimed primarily at shielding the company’s Australian casinos from the volatility of those in Macau and Las Vegas. The split will see Crown Resorts retain its existing properties in Melbourne and Perth, its Barangaroo development in Sydney and its interest in online bookmakers Betfair and Crownbet. However, a new international holding company will be formed to look after Crown’s international assets which include Studio City and City of Dreams in Macau, City of Dreams Manila and the US$2.5 billion Alon project in Las Vegas. “The board has for some time been looking to address what we believe to be a material undervaluation by the market of Crown Resorts’ assets, due to a traditional consolidated (or amalgamated) structure,” Crown resorts Chairman Rob Rankin said. “In particular, we believe that Crown Resorts’ extremely high quality Australian resorts are not being fully valued and the Crown Resorts share price has been highly correlated to the performance of its investment in Macau.” Under the restructure, Packer will no longer continue as an