Asia Times Online, 15 Jan 2009, Muhammad Cohen
SINGAPORE - When the Sands Macao opened in 2004, Asia's first Las Vegas-style casino prompted an extraordinary boom for Macau and casino owner Las Vegas Sands (LVS). Thereafter, Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong reversed decades of ruling party opposition to approve two casino resorts, hoping to emulate Macau's and LVS's success.
Macau and LVS are now both reeling as the world's economies take a turn for the worse, and some analysts forecast Singapore's integrated resorts (IRs), the first due to open at the end of this year, may be following in those footsteps. Conceived in prosperity to win a competitive bidding process that attracted the world's top gaming operators and contracted during a regional construction wave, Singapore's IRs will be the world's most expensive casino resorts constructed, costing up to US$6 billion. The global economic downturn, and falling revenue at Macau's casinos, now cast dark shadows over those heady plans.
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