The First Guide to Macau & Cotai Casinos

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The boss sent Chuckmoster to Macau to see what the deal was with Asia's Las Vegas. He returned smitten and poured his love it into creating the world's first guide to Macau casinos. This is his blog.

Galaxy Macau To Open May 15

I am upbeat about this news. The Galaxy Macau, formally the MegaResort, is due to open May 15. My mood though has noting to do with the roof top wave pool with white sand beach. I am happy because in my mind Macau has turned the corner from the 2008 crash.

I remember the seeing the mothballed Galaxy construction. An eerie concrete skeleton, a quarter covered in glass. The spires at the end only slats or raw metal reaching to the sky like a zombie through the dirt. Ghost like plastic tarps blowing in the breeze as a handful of workmen pass wraith like to weld this or that, causing random fires to be seen throughout the corpse.

That's in the past now. Yet if you look at the figures, and compare them to the grandeur originally envisioned, you can see Galaxy haunted by the ghosts of 2008. The original plan was to allow for 600 gaming tables. That now is at only 450, or 25% less. And those are not all new tables, an unspecified number are moved from their other properties. More sobering are the rooms. A promise made by Galaxy in September to increase the ultra-luxe rooms operated under the Okura and Banyan Tree names from 900 to 1400. Both luxury brands turned up their noses at that offer. They are only opening about 750 rooms in those names, less than the 900 originally quoted.

Alas, we have our day of joy. I only hope its tempered with the wisdom of experience.

Sheldon In Stripes?

So there is an investigation of Las Vegas Sands for violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Given Sand's use of politics in the US, and the general view of corruption in Asia, everyone seems to be leaping to conclusions. Some of those conclusions are putting Sheldon Adleson in stripes. All too hasty?

Gifts would not be unusual necessity to conduct business in Asia. A rule of thumb I used is to give some token at a business meeting that is proportional to what you are asking for. The idea is to maintain the mood of cooperation, or the "Han" as I knew it in my time in Korea. Meeting for the first time? How about a book on the history of your company? Getting a $50 million contract signed? Perhaps a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue? Don't go overboard with the "Han", you might run afoul of local corruption laws (such as they are in Asia).

The Dead Chips Will Keep Rolling, Like The Sands From An Hourglass

For those of your with your head in the ground, Sociedade de Turismo e Diversoes de Macau, or more generically referred to here as former monopolist SJM and proprietor of Macau's grittiest grind joints, is in the middle of family spat to determine the fate of the company once tycoon and patriarch Stanley Ho Hung-sun kicks it. From afar it might sound exciting and even ground breaking. A family soap opera and feud that could make fodder for a Asian make over of the US TV show Dallas or Falcon Crest. What is going to happen to all of daddy's millions? Read through the business pages on the issue, and you could feel the intrigue. Who DID shoot JR anyway?

Yet, the scene elicits a big yawn from this Macau watcher. Why? The drama is the same, only the music differs. These types of family soaps are the rule in Asia, and more importantly for those who care, not really a damn thing changes in the end.

Putting The Strip' in Cotai Strip

I used to frequent a popular Hong Kong chat board. (RIP Icered.com) While I met many great people chatting and joking, there was a forbidding section marked nightlife. Everyone knew the contents of that section, partly because we understood the code words. The section was almost exclusively dedicated to detailing, sometimes graphically, the "massage parlors" of Macau.

What made it infamous however was its singularity. Nowhere, and especially in English, was the ratings of parlors, and even specific girls, so recounted so another punter could recreate that night. Macau's "adult entertainment", much like the strip clubs in Vegas, is a factor in its fame. Unlike Vegas however, such offerings were never a selling point, not even through the somewhat veiled references you can find on Vegas travel shows. In short Macau's officials, if not its citizens, would be, to paraphrase Capt. Renault in Casablanca "Shocked! Just shocked! To find such things in Macau."

Fail Caesars: Caddyshack Macau

About a year ago, I stayed at Paris Las Vegas. I have not seen the property since it was built ten years ago. I found when I got there ten years was also the last time a painter visited the balloon outside. When I stayed at Flamingo a couple months ago, my room came with a non-functional safe and shards of glass in the bathroom. Likewise, the recently announced Trippies awards gave Imperial Palace a host of "Worst of" awards. You would think Ceasars Entertainment would go out of their way to have more garbage lying around their properties.

Macau denied Ceasars permission to build a road connecting their Casino (Golf Course) to the Cotai strip. So Ceasars asked again, and was denied again. Undaunted, Ceasars, I assume, figured asking forgiveness is easier than asking permission. After all, what would the locals know about building roads? So they started to build a new private two lane road.

That's Thirty Minutes Away... I'll Be There In Ten.

One wonders if Las Vegas Sands VP Rob Goldstein is looking forward to 2011, or regretting it. Rob recently became head of Sands Global Gamming Operations, or really Macau and Singapore. A position created just for him, and papers refer to him as number three in line. At first glance, it seems like a plum. Revenues for both locales are up this year, and are only expected to reach even higher.

Or is Uncle Sheldon sending a message by putting the Rob at the top? The Macau operations have hit two major stumbling blocks the past month, and Rob might be playing the cleaner, or at least a message to stop messing around.

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The boss sent Chuckmonster to Macau to bring back the scoop on what Asia's Las Vegas is all about. Follow along as Chuck deals with all the questions, logistics, travel issues, language barriers, hotel construction stuff, the lack of craps tables and all the other obstacles that any/every Macau and Cotai tripper might have to deal with.

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