MACAU: Macau is poised to outstrip Las Vegas in the gambling stakes. Clifford Coonan was shown around by one of the men who runs it all, the appropriately named Mr Swing
Viva Macau! The sight of a huge volcano under construction beside a large fake amphitheatre in the former Portuguese enclave of Macau is the first sign of dramatic changes under way on the southern Chinese island.
Asia's glittering gambling capital, Macau wants to steal the jackpot from Las Vegas and will overtake the world's gambling epicentre this year in the amount of takings raked in by its green baize tables and jingling slot machines.
A huge new casino resort, which is going to be the single biggest tourist investment to date anywhere, will further cement the formerly sleepy city-state's status as Asia's gambling capital. Macau returned to Chinese rule in 1999.
US casino operator Las Vegas Sands Corp announced yesterday it has teamed up with seven major hotel chains to develop an Asian version of the Las Vegas Strip in Macau's Cotai area.
The first phase of the project opens in 2007 and will feature seven resort hotels with more than 10,000 rooms, casinos and eight entertainment theatres as well as a convention centre.
Frank McFadden, chief operating officer of Venetian Macau Ltd, said: "You could anticipate that Macau will overtake Las Vegas this year. You have half as many people spending more."
Mr McFadden, who hails from the Ardoyne area of Belfast, is the charming yet formidable face of the new wave of gaming to hit Macau, which is located 40 miles west of Hong Kong.
Sands Macau opened last May and has already earned its money back, an astonishing rate of return.
Las Vegas had 37.4 million visitors last year, with gaming revenues of $5.3 billion, while Macau had 16.7 million visitors and revenues of $5.1 billion.
It plans to beat that this year.
Sands was the first foreign-owned casino to take advantage of new laws allowing overseas competition in what had been a gaming monopoly controlled by the Gambling King of Macau, the octogenarian tycoon Stanley Ho and his company, SJM, which runs 12 of Macau's 14 casinos.
The change in the law has given a much-needed injection of Vegas-style glitz to the former Portuguese colony, which had developed a reputation for seediness and gang warfare. It has transformed Macau, where the economy grew by 25 per cent last year.
Driving growth in the industry has been a surge in the number of tourists from China, following the inauguration of a scheme allowing individual travellers from mainland China into Macau.
Casinos now account for 80 per cent of economic activity in Macau.
Dr Ho has almost mythical status in the city. His flagship is the Casino Lisboa, one of the landmarks of Macau, open 24 hours a day. The casino features 107 slots and 146 table games, with six restaurants and a hotel with 1,000 rooms.
Dr Ho has Irish blood, his nephew Michael Swing tells us during a brisk walkabout through the casino.
"We cater to the Asian community. All our customers nearly are Chinese, it used to be Hong Kong Chinese 15 years ago but now we get high-rollers from all over China," said Mr Swing, a dapper former Cathay Pacific steward who joined his uncle's firm 30 years ago.
The Lisboa is an incredible place. Scores of legally tolerated Chinese prostitutes, many of whom live in the casino's hotel, circle the restaurant downstairs.
The sex workers have to cast lots for who gets to patrol the prime public area and who has to wait for clients in the restaurant or in their rooms. Everyone has to gamble in Macau, working girls included.
"I've seen people lose millions here, but the gamblers never look very rich. They are very casual, but the Chinese have a lot of money. Chinese are the highest rollers here and they are the highest rollers in Las Vegas," said Mr Swing.
Dr Ho has responded to the competition by upgrading his own casinos, and his daughter and business partner, Pansy Ho, has entered into a joint casino venture with US gaming giant MGM Mirage. She also runs the only casino in North Korea, though apparently it doesn't make any money.
In one high-roller room we watch as a woman in a white polo-necked jersey loses about €10,000 on a single game of baccarat. VIPs are flown to these rooms by helicopter, and people can win or lose three or four million euro in a day. One punter lost €100 million in a single game of baccarat.
As we descend to the regular gaming halls, hundreds of people in black and white croupier costumes pass as the shift changes. By law, only people from the enclave or those with a special permit may work in the casino, a huge boost to employment in Macau.
Other casinos new to town include the Hong Kong-run Galaxy Resort, while Las Vegas gambling mogul Steve Wynn broke ground on a huge mega-casino resort recently.
The investment bank Goldman Sachs describes Macau as "Asia's boom town".
"Macau is in the early stages of a major transformation which could see it surpass Las Vegas as the world's largest gaming and convention centre," its analysts said in a research document.
The Chinese have fought a long battle against a national obsession with gambling. During the Song dynasty, gamblers' hands were cut off, but that didn't stop Chinese people gambling on everything from fighting crickets to the Aintree Grand National.
Corrupt officials have gambled away billions in the casinos of Macau, and the Beijing government is trying to stop this. Party officials gambling in Macau are known as "ganbulers", which is a pun on the Chinese word for cadres.
Any government officials caught gambling with public funds or using their influence to protect gaming operations are punished, part of a government drive to stamp out potentially destabilising corruption.
"Our high rollers are mostly not from mainland China. We have full transparency in our reports. The mainland officials don't come here," said McFadden.
The scene on the high-roller floor of the Sands is very different from the Lisboa. Its main gambling hall is open and spacious, while the Lisboa's rooms are clearly built for the no-frills, hard-core gambler.
The Sands upper floors are extremely tasteful, the Shanghai Room spectacular with its view over the floor where people are busy playing baccarat - the favoured game of the Chinese - blackjack and the slot machines.
"The Chinese consumer will become increasingly educated and urbane through the mass media. We're ahead of the market with this facility but on the main gaming floor you can see how well it's being embraced," said McFadden.
"Most visitors to Macau come from the mainland, but we're getting a higher proportion from Hong Kong. On our main floor you can see we have women, couples. We designed this casino to be the antithesis of what was there before. Where the ceilings were low, we built high. People appreciate this," said McFadden.