Juding by his tan, Michael Chen must have a very hard life running the Caesars golf course in Macau while waiting for a crack to open in the Gaming Law that would allow new sub-concessions to be granted to outsiders such as his parent company, Harrahs Entertainment. It was briefly made that much harder yesterday when a Reuters correspondent misquoted him as saying at the G2E Asia conference that Harrahs “believes” rather than “hopes” it will be allowed into the gaming market. The agency corrected the mistake later, but not before it raised a few eyebrows. Everyone knows that Harrahs has been knocking on every door and kicking every tyre in town to see what deals can be done to get a toehold in another property, as it would appear that the golf course is not going to be allowed to build a casino on it anytime soon.

Not much else interesting was said at the conference on its opening day. Francis Lui, boss of Galaxy, noted that VIP growth is unsustainable in the long term and that the future lies in China’s middle class. Which might, just might, explain why his company is building a big resort in Cotai. Tom Arasi of Marina Bay Sands said his resort will be fully open by 1Q next year. Bloombury of the Philippines said its new Steelman-designed resort in Manila Bay will be open in late 2012, and it does look like an impressive project; and a survey of “experts” produced by Future Watch predicts that Macau’s boom will continue unabated for the next decade. Today should be more interesting.

Used with permission and copyright to IntelMacau.com