Macau remains the world’s largest gambling market, with around US$40bn in revenue per year, but with $ 5.85bn from its two casino complexes in 2012, Singapore is snapping at the heels of Las Vegas for second place.
Vegas saw revenues of $6bn from its around 40 casinos last year. “The biggest revenue for Singapore’s casinos still comes from VIP players,” sociologist Melody Lu Chia-Wen said.
“That percentage is higher than in Macau: 90 per cent,” added the associate professor of sociology at Macau University, who has studied Singapore’s casino scene.
With its five-star hotels and world-class asset management banks, Singapore is a prime location for the very wealthy. Not yet four years into operation, the city-state’s casino complex is already one of the world’s most successful.
Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa casinos have also created over 50,000 jobs. In 2010, the first year of the casinos, spending by visitors to the city-state surged by 49 per cent from the year before, largely attributed to the casinos.
By 2015, Asia-Pacific gamblers are set to overtake those in the US, according to corporate consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers, with an estimated 43.4 per cent of the world’s wagers hitting the tables in Macau, Singapore and other regional venues, against 40.1 per cent in the US.
Worldwide gaming revenues will reach $182.8bn that year, the consultancy said, up 55 per cent from 2010. The Philippines and Japan have also expressed interest in becoming major gambling venues. A Citibank study estimated that Japan has the potential for $15bn annually of gambling revenues.
