How Attractive is a Casino in Singapore?

Just how attractive is a casino in Singapore according to industry projection?

From the forecast of the Marina Bay Sands, they can recouped USD5.5 billion in a couple of most, at most.

The Marina Bay Sands, the US$5.5bil integrated resort in Singapore, will compete with Gentings Resorts Sentosa in 2010. This project is expected to open in January or February.

According to a spokesman,The Marina Bay Sands Resort would be cashflow positive within the first couple of months of operations come 2010.For the Las Vegas Sands group, the Marina Bay Sands is the most expensive “casino” in the stable.

The iconic development features three 55-storey hotels that will have a 375m long SkyPark on the top of the hotels.

The spokesman added that, “A higher percentage of Marina Bay's business will come from non-gaming operations compared to Macau today. Over the future we expect Macau to change its percentage as the Cotai Strip gets more built up. Marina Bay Sands will be more typical of Las Vegas than Macau is today,” he said.

The Marina Bay Sands Resort is expected to complement Genting’s Resorts World at Sentosa even though they are in friendly competition to an extent.

The spokesman of the Marina Bay Sands Resort opined, “I think Genting is a significant addition. I like the idea. I know it sounds strange liking Genting there because I think it’s going to help the overall tourist attraction base to Singapore itself,” he said.

He said that the promotional activity by both integrated resorts would only help and their respective themes and features would be enough to differentiate one from another.

“From a marketing perspective, Sentosa will be more a family-orientated resort than we will. There will be some meeting and small MICE competition."

“From a competition standpoint and from the business travel, there will not be a significant amount of competition."

“There is a very big difference between the two places,” he said, adding that competition would be limited to the VIP and premium players at their respective casinos.

Marina Bay Sands when fully opened, expects the 50,000 and 75,000 people to be on its premises daily.

It would go as high as 100,000 people on certain days. The visitors to the Macau Venetian is roughly 65,000 people a day.

Marina Bay Sands is counting on attracting a large number of visitors from Malaysia, Indonesia, India and Thailand.

After spending USD 5.5 billion, imagine they can get the money back within a couple of months! A mother lode to print money, that is!

So imagine, how much Genting Resorts at Sentosa will be raking in,especially in 2H, 2010? Your guess is as good as mine.

Best to buy some Genting International or put some money into Genting Berhad and Genting Malaysia which is traded on Bursa in Malaysia.