According to a report by Macau Business, Finance Secretary Francis Tam has said that Wynn Macau hasn’t yet applied for the new gaming tables the company expects to include in its Cotai project and, in any case, the government will not accept any new applications for tables until March 2013. That would mean Wynn won’t know how many gaming tables his Cotai project can have until a year before it is due to open, by which stage its construction will be quite advanced. Tam also affirmed that the current number of tables in operation, 4,770, would rise “gradually” to a maximum of 5,500, the government’s cap announced earlier this year. Wynn said last week that his new casino is expected to be completed in 2014 and will feature no more than 400 to 500 gaming tables and 1,200 to 1,800 slot machines.

Why is Francis Tam speaking publicly about Wynn? It might be nothing, just a response to a reporter’s question. Yet it might also be feedback: don’t think that coming out in public and doing some right royal arse-kissing (as Wynn did last week) is going to get you special treatment in the form of a private commitment on a certain number of tables that you can build into your masterplan for Cotai. The days of “comfort letters” from the Pink House are over, we understand. And it’s not just Wynn that’s hearing it. Even local property developers close to the previous administration and official advisers to the current chief executive are being told that No Means No to requests for plots of land to be rezoned. This administration is going out of its way to toe the line with Beijing and does not want to risk anything that might result in increased scrutiny from across the border.

Used with permission & copyright to IntelMacau