Singapore – The New Las Vegas?

Until the beginning of this year, gambling was illegal in Singapore. Because of the opening of two major casino complexes, however, Singapore permitted gambling within its borders, and has already made around $4 billion out of it.

The country was aiming to broaden its legal sources of income, this is why around $10 billion has been spent on building the two gigantic casinos, The Genting Resorts World Sentosa and Marina Bay Sands, one of the most spectacular resorts in the world, with a magnificent swimming pool on the top of the complex.
These two casinos have already provided around $4 billion income for Singapore, whith reports predicting a more than $5 billion revenue for 2011.

The Marina Bay Sands Experience

“Singapore is already the second-largest casino market in Asia after Macau and could potentially overtake the Las Vegas strip as the second largest casino market in the world after Macau in the next two to three years”, say DMG & Partners analysts.

Until 2006, Las Vegas was the world’s largest gambling resort, but this title has been taken by Macau. The Singapore resorts will probably continue to weaken Vegas’ presence in the world-wide gambling industry.

Statistics show that most of the visitors of the Singapore casinos came from countries like Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, India, Korea, China and Japan.
This also means that an increasing number of Asians will choose Singapore or Macau instead of Las Vegas as a gambling/holiday destination.

The Dean of Nevada University Las Vegas’ Singapore campus, Andy Nazarechuk said the following about the issue:

“Las Vegas will continue to attract (Asian visitors) but instead of the player making two or three trips to Las Vegas in the year they may make only one trip and the other two trips may be more closer regionally.”

If Las Vegas wants to keep its title of the ‘second most popular gambling destination in the world’, Vegas marketing people will surely need to come up with some more unique incentives to keep Asians attracted.