Casino
A sunset business?
Gambling down in Vegas and Niagara Falls, dependent on food and entertainment. (excerpts) soc.culture.singapore
Jul 9, 2005

Bad boy
Is it a good idea to start a casino in Singapore...Is business prospect good?

To find out, I stayed a few days in April and May at the casinos in Las Vegas and in Niagara Falls in Canada.

Las Vegas, a decade ago, was booming. All the card and roulette tables were full, hotel room were full, tickets for the shows were hard to get.

In April, I toured the big casinos at the Strip - Caesars Palace, MGM Grand, New York New York, Harrah's Mandalay, Wynn and Circus Circus.

I was surprised to find that the size of the casinos at Caesars Palace and Circus Circus had been reduced considerably. The area is now installed with slot machines.

In all the casinos, 3/4 of the card/roulette tables were NOT operating, and there were not many gamblers at the card tables.

I chatted with the VP-in-charge and he told me that gambling business had been on the decline for some years now and it now accounts for less than 20% of their total business.

He told me that the casinos now earn 3/4 of their income from food and drinks, comedy, magic shows, topless dance and adult shows, mini theme park rides, roller coaster rides, golf courses, spas, health club, quickie weddings...

Business now is seasonal; at peak times during summer holiday, the hotel rooms are fully booked, at other time, the occupancy is less than 40%.

I wanted to see the Celine Dion show but it was cancelled for two days due to poor bookings. It was only on Saturday that I managed to see her performance.

I toured the three big casinos at Niagara falls in Mid-May. Business was no better.

In fact, the theme park at MGM Grand was like a ghost town. Tables at a large portion of the casinos were covered up. There were few gamblers.

At the hotel, only three rooms were occupied on the whole floor. The front desk manager told me business was slow during the off peak months. The restaurants were not full during the dinner hours.

Casino business is bad. Even in Vegas the capital city for gambling, all casinos are going into other tourist-related business in order to survive.

Why is Singapore taking the gamble on casino?
Bad boy.

Kantian
By the time the casino is ready in 2010 or later, internet casino may catch on and become very popular, then Singapore casino will become a white elephant.

Bad boy
On-line gambling is already taking away business from casinos in Vegas and Europe. In future, it will no doubt affect the business of casino in this region, in spite of the law against on-line gambling.

If the casino depends on tourist dollars only, then it will eventually be a white elephant.

The casino in Genting was relatively successful because of its weather, locals and Singaporeans. Few foreign tourists patronise Gentings. The same is true in the case of casinos on "gambling" cruise to nowhere.

Sentosa is already with golf courses and other tourist attractions. It would not make significant difference even if more attractions were added to the casino.

It really does not make sense to waste our limited resources on a project that is doomed before it is even built.

Jammie22
With all its own paranoia and self-imposed restrictions, I won't be surprise if the IR (integrated resorts) are still not ready by 2012.

They should just release the licences to existing resorts and hotels group, and let the idea of resorts develop and integrate by itself.

Reproducing a LA or Macau or Genting in Singapore, each with over 30 years of its own history behind it, is like building a house in the jungle.

Di Da Di
Why? EDB now runs out of ideas, and now they think going back the old
well-tested businesses is safe like casino, hi-tea dancing, bar top dancing making of auto parts, beautifying Geylang Road red-lights, street hawking.

The ultimates of having these are actually to create a mass of people for these activities at least to make them look busy, with crowds crowding around these places.

So they have also been granting more and more people coming to Singapore merely also to drive the tourist numbers which the CEO of TPB has to report - to keep his job.

Bad boy
Frankly, if more tourists do come to gamble in the casino, it would be good to go ahead with the casino. BUT how many more tourists can the casino attract?

Why would gambling tourists come to Singapore when they could easily go to Macau, Australia, or Vegas? No, (only) few would come for the purpose of gambling in Singapore.

The fact fewer gamblers go to Vegas and casinos at Niagara fall during off peak seasons show us that casinos by itself do not attract tourists

9.888
Yes Bad Boy, when I entered LAX airport on Apr 4, 2005 I was asked why I came to USA? I remembered I lost some $$$ in 1980s at LAS casino so I quickly told this immigration officer that I wished to throw $$$
again at LAS and he was smiling in his face so happy that no other question was asked!

Then I toured Reno, Las Vegas and you are right! 3/4 empty in Reno casino and 1/4 in Vegas then I was told by friends here that all running cost in Vegas casino is only supported by the only 1% billionaire gamblers....

kilometric
The casino is not really for locals, it is meant more for foreign tourists from China, India, Indonesia, etc.

That Crazy Horse nude cabaret stuff is also not meant for locals, it is more for tourists because one ticket will cost more than S$200 for a two- hour show.

EDB is pretty smart to let casino operators decide if they want to bid and invest S$2 billion here for two IRs.

If they fail government will just say it is their own fault, because they went in with their eyes wide open.

alexx
I tend to feel that the main rationale behind the so-called "integrated resort" plus casino in Singapore are nothing more than attempts to copy-cat the recent immediate successes of Macau's new casinos, counter the upcoming Hong Kong's Disneyland and also Genting's expanding operations.

The first two can depend on the Chinese mainlanders, while Genting has the added advantage of its mountain's air cool weather, Singapore has none of these advantages.

It's hard to visualise plane-loads of Chinese mainlanders to fly an average of 5 hours to visit a hot humid place, while they can get the same thing within 2 hours flying in Hong Kong & Macau.

Of course STB will trumpet that Singapore is the better choice, but how many gamblers really care?

Jammie22
There is no need for an Integrated Resort in Singapore. Sentosa is already a good example of a failed or disintegrated resort, and the reasons are all too clear for every one to see.

South Korea never blow their trumpets, but they do have casinos in luxurious hotels, and they are quietly but surely doing very well, and you see many regulars from HK & China inside the Sheraton. MM Lee should learn the old adage that certain things are better done graciously and quietly.

Jigong
When you talk about casino in Singapore, it is more meaningful to look at casinos in Macau.

Casinos in USA have not been able to attract gamblers lately due to a number of reasons.

The main reason is that casinos in USA used to depend a great deal on Asian customers. However, the number of Asian gamblers going to USA has declined tremendously due to the following reasons:

1. Americans are still suffering from post-9/11 hysteria. Gamblers
normally look sleepy and don't look 'smart' in the way they dress. As a
result they have problems getting through the immigration checkpoints all over USA.

2. USA is too far for most Asian gamblers as there are much nearer
destinations in Macau, Australia, South Korea, Genting, etc.
Jul 9, 2005