Adelson has faith in Macau despite customers spending less

Adelson has faith in Macau despite customers spending less

Las Vegas Sands Corp (LVS) Chairman Sheldon G. Adelson said he was confident that his gambling business would revive, especially in Macau where Chinese people were "prolific gamers," Newsweek reported.

For a time America's third-richest man, Adelson had rebranded Las Vegas as a family spot and turned Macau into a top gambling destination in Asia with his investments.

But his bet on Asia has forced him to shore up projects with US$1 billion out of his own pocket during the global credit crunch, according to the magazine.

How would he describe this moment in economic history? Adelson said it was "certainly remarkable," but added that everything had a cycle and gambling must come back as "it always does."

"The Chinese in particular are and will be prolific gamers. Not because they are addictive people, but because the concept of luck is such an integral part of their culture," he told Newsweek.

But Adelson admitted that visitors to Macau were spending less money nowadays, although the number of arrivals was on the rise.
"We're running 15 to 20 percent ahead in terms of attendance year-on-year in Macau," he said.

"But in the gaming industry, there are two components – those who gamble a lot, the whales, that could win or lose, on a night or a weekend, millions of dollars. Those people represent 60 to 70 percent of the gross income of a casino," he added.

Adelson also had faith things would get back to the level of 2007, when his business registered a record year for gaming earnings, but he said it would still depend on the Chinese central government as well as Macau's government policies.

"We need to see in Macau, for example, what the attitude of the new government will be; hopefully, restrictions preventing more travel from Guangdong province to Macau will be lifted. We're still planning a new Cotai Strip in Macau," he said.

"China's got a big stimulus package, and they control the country unlike the way we do here in the U.S. Fifty percent of enterprises are still owned by the government in China, so they can turn things around on a dime," he added, having been asked whether people in Guangdong would still have money left to gamble in the SAR in the future.

Meanwhile, the LVS chairman said he had more confidence in China's economic recovery than in America's, claiming Chinese people could get stimulus money flowing and control the economy "a lot faster" than in the States, Newsweek reported.

Monday, 09 March 2009
Macau Daily Times