Thursday, February 15, 2007

Chinese gambling revenue in Macau has topped that of the Las Vegas Strip and
will more than double again by 2010, the president and chief operating
officer of Las Vegas Sands Corp. predicted on Monday. Sands this year is
opening a "Venetian" resort that shares the name of its Vegas casino and
will be one of the first examples of a project that duplicates the glitz of
the U.S. gambling capital in the only place to allow casinos in China.
Speaking at the Reuters Hotels and Casinos Summit, Sands COO William Weidner
said the Venetian will be Macau's first mega-resort, featuring shopping and
entertainment attractions that will draw mainland Chinese visitors who now
frequent Hong Kong for those pursuits. Wall Street expects Macau casino
revenue, which hit $7 billion in 2006, to grow to anywhere from $10 billion
to $15 billion in 2010, Weidner said. "I'm more in the $15 billion-plus
camp," he added. The Vegas strip of mega-resorts generated $6.69 billion in
gambling revenue last year. Sands is investing $11 billion in a string of
casino resorts in a part of Macau dubbed the Cotai Strip. Essentially, Sands
aims to reproduce in Macau the Las Vegas Strip of today, complete with the
condominiums, shopping malls and entertainment that have blossomed in the
last few years.
Weidner estimated that some 3 million square feet of malls to be built in
Macau would be worth at least $8.4 billion to Sands if it sold out, from as
early as 2008. Residential units could fetch another $3 billion to $5
billion, he added.