Macao, a heaven for gambling on the coast of southern China
It is 3 a.m. on a humid Sunday in Macao in late July, and hundreds of people, most of them Chinese, are still filling into the gigantic new Sands Macao hotel and casino, making their way up the escalator to the building's main gallery.
Under a 100,000-pound chandelier, on a carpeted floor nearly three times the size of a football field, people stand shoulder to shoulder around the baccarat tables, gambling the hours away.
Across the Avenida de Amizade, a sprawling theme park called Fisherman's Wharf is going up; the neon lights from the Sands illuminate such park features as an artificial 130-foot volcano that rises above a replica of the Roman Colosseum.
Just a few blocks away, construction has begun on the Las Vegas tycoon Steve Wynn's $700 million hotel and casino project, the Wynn Macao, which is scheduled to open in 2006. In addition, Macao is awaiting the opening of a MGM Grand Paradise hotel and casino, and Stanley Ho, whose name has long been synonymous with gambling in Macao, is trying to update his own casino empire by building the Grand Lisboa on the Avenida Infante D. Henrique.
Perhaps the most stunning building projects are going on about four miles away, on what is called the Cotai Strip, Macao's expensive and hyperambitious answer to the Las Vegas Strip. By 2007, one of the world's largest and most extravagant building complexes, the Venetian Macau hotel and casino, is expected to open.
It's easy to see why Macao, a small island territory 37 miles southwest of Hong Kong, is already being called Asia's Las Vegas.
Over the last few years, Las Vegas and Hong Kong entrepreneurs have been promising to transform this tiny former Portuguese colony into the entertainment capital of Asia, full of Vegas style. They have already earmarked billions of dollars to invest in dozens of new hotels, shopping malls, theme parks, convention centers and super-sized casinos.
In fact, this year, Macao's casinos could bring in about $6.3 billion by December, and some analysts expect they will surpass the Las Vegas Strip in casino revenues. Such an increase in casino revenues, which were $5.33 billion last year, would represent an increase of nearly 20 percent . "It's the real deal," says Nick Cashmore, an analyst at CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, which compiled the comparative data.
For decades, Macao was a sleepy Portuguese colony that offered little more than a taste of European architecture in Asia and an array of smoke-filled casinos catering to gamblers from Hong Kong and Taiwan.
But soon after Portugal returned Macao to China in 1999 after nearly 450 years of colonial rule, the territory's 40-year-old gambling monopoly, controlled by Mr. Ho, ended. Bids for new gambling licenses were accepted, and some of Las Vegas's biggest names started planning for a big invasion.
Now Macao is racing to build bridges, tunnels, railways and airports. There are even plans to spend $3.8 billion to build a 17-mile bridge across the Pearl River, connecting Macao and the city of Zhuhai to Hong Kong by the end of the decade, making it possible for visitors to Hong Kong's new Disneyland to also make a quick drive south to the Venetian in Macao.
It is 3 a.m. on a humid Sunday in Macao in late July, and hundreds of people, most of them Chinese, are still filling into the gigantic new Sands Macao hotel and casino, making their way up the escalator to the building's main gallery.