Singapore Casino Resorts Financial Troves

It would appear that Singapore’s gamble to open its new casino resorts is going to be worth the effort and financial risk.

The Marina Bay Sands is one the new resorts and it costs in excess of $5-billion.  The casino complex opened its doors to customers in April this year and hosts a variety of entertainment forms from a shopping mall, casino and three hotel towers joined at the top by an eye catching platform. The developer of the Marina Bay, Las Vegas Corporation is set to complete other sections of the casino metropolis which will include a museum, floating platforms and theatres.

Singapore’s government approved the building of the Marina Bay Sands; the $4-billion Resorts World Sentosa complex is set to attract the rich and the famous to the city-state. Apart from the casino complex the World Sentosa will also play host to a Universal Studios theme park, a Marine Life park, numerous hotels and a spa.  The complex was officially opened by Malaysia’s Genting on Singapore’s Sentosa Island in January.

Casino Gamble Paying Off

According to officials since the new casino resorts opened in July a million tourists have visited Singapore, this a record number of tourists for one month.  Although visits have declined slightly to just under one million in August and September, it has still set the records for those months respectively.

Sheldon Adelson, who’s the Las Vegas Sands chief executive, estimates that the casino’s annual revenues will total $6.5 billion by 2012 from the number of tourists that will visit the resort.  In turn this will make Singapore’s casino industry a larger financial wise than its Las Vegas counterpart. The nation’s economic growth this year will progress rapidly to approximately one-percentage point to 15 percent experts from Singapore’s DBS Bank said.

Weighing the Social Risks

On the downside; Singapore’s new casino complex has been criticized by Georgetown University Professor Pamela Sodhy, she’s of the opinion that the new casino will give rise to a serious of problem gamblers that might resort to crime to fund their habit. To date, the powers that be have reported a series of casino-related crimes such as identity fraud and the theft of mobile devices in one of the world’s safest cities.

In order to try and discourage its citizens from visiting the casino Singapore’s government levied a daily fee of  US$75 to daunt its citizens from using the casinos, foreign visitors are exempted from paying this fee.  Casino operators providing free bus services to local citizens visiting its casinos has been stopped by the government as well.

Measures implemented by the government have not deterred one million Singaporeans to visit the two casinos, since it first opened seven months ago.  An expert on Southeast Asian history, Sodhy says some local gamblers have been wagering larger amounts of cash to try to and recover the entry fee.

The government of Singapore has downplayed the casinos impact on the local populace, situated within the complexes and described them as “incorporated resorts” offering a variety of attractions.  It’s a message that’s reflects the city’s traditionalist image.