Caesars Entertainment has been granted approval to open a “foreigner-only” casino in South Korea in conjunction with Indonesian conglomerate Lippo.
The first phase of the project also includes two hotels and will be built near Incheon airport outside Seoul. Shares in Lippo surged more than 35 per cent after the preliminary approval was announced.
In total the firms expect to invest 2.3 trillion won ($2.1bn) in further projects over the next nine years. South Korea currently has more than 16 foreigner-only casinos, meant to appeal primarily to northern Chinese.
Most of them are clustered near Seoul’s airport or on the island of Jeju, which is just over an hour away by plane from northern cities such as Shanghai and Beijing - making them a convenient alternative to Macau.
