Wednesday 19 November 2008

Wynn disagrees with Sands


WYNN Resorts Chairman Steve Wynn said he’s in ‘complete disagreement’ with a Las Vegas Sands Corp senior executive who said government decisions may have hurt the development of Macau casinos.

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Guanyu said...

Wynn disagrees with Sands

WYNN Resorts Chairman Steve Wynn said he’s in ‘complete disagreement’ with a Las Vegas Sands Corp senior executive who said government decisions may have hurt the development of Macau casinos.

‘In any economy, growth has to be done in phases’, Mr Wynn said in an interview on Bloomberg TV on Wednesday.

‘If someone tries to build six hotels at once and finds the market can’t accommodate it, there’s a problem with the planning’.

Gambling growth in Macau is slowing on the global recession and restrictions by China its citizens’ travel to the city.

Las Vegas Sands, controlled by billionaire Sheldon Adelson, said this month it halted development at its US$12 billion (S$18.35 billion) project in Macau, leading to at least 9,000 job losses.

‘There have been some changes in terms of the central government’s attitude toward Macau’, Las Vegas Sands President William Weidner said in an investor conference on Nov 17.

‘We don’t think it’s necessarily all that prudent to put more money in until we see how that attitude works its way out’.

Average monthly revenue at Macau’s casinos may fall to 7 billion patacas (S$1.34 trillion) next year from 8.2 billion so far this year, Mr Edmund Ho, the city’s chief executive, said Nov 11. Macau’s government will take over any casino that goes bankrupt, he added.

Gambling Revenue Casino revenue in Macau has more than doubled since 2004, when the government ended the 40-year monopoly of Stanley Ho, not related to the chief executive, and allowed foreign companies Las Vegas Sands, Wynn Resorts and MGM Mirage to operate.

China restricted travel by its citizens to Macau, the only Chinese city where casinos are legal, to limit growth in high- roller gambling in the former Portuguese colony. Mainland travelers to Hong Kong can no longer visit Macau using the same visa.

Since Oct 1, residents of neighbouring Guangdong province have only been allowed one visit to the city every three months.

‘The community has to be given a chance to absorb such expansion in an orderly fashion’, Mr Wynn told Bloomberg TV. ‘I found the government’s policies are evenhanded’.