World's Biggest Casino Opens Today: Venetian to transform Macau

The southern coastal Chinese city of Macau already surpasses the Las Vegas Strip as the world's most lucrative gambling center, but today Sheldon Adelson, American billionaire and chairman and chief executive officer of Las Vegas Sands Corporation, aims to transform Macau into a major resort city and business destination, with conventions, trade shows, gambling and big-ticket entertainment when he opens the USD $2.4 billion (EUR 1.8 billion, GBP 1.2 billion) Venetian Macau mega-resort today, August 28, 2007.

Last year Macau's casinos generated $6.95 billion in gambling revenue last year, while the Las Vegas strip made only $6.69 billion.

Adelson hopes his mega-resort, the Venetian Macao Resort Hotel on Cotai will help launch a massive, concentrated resort area on the Cotai strip.

"Today is the beginning of what has been a dream of mine for some time to reproduce the capital of entertainment in Asia for Asians," Adelson said at a press conference Tuesday several hours before the Venetian was to open to the public.

MEGA IS THE KEY WORD

The 10.5 million-square-foot Venetian is twice the size of the Las Vegas original, and is the largest building in Asia. It is the second largest building in the world, the largest being at the Boeing plant in Washington.

To get a feeling for the overwhelming size of the Venetian, imagine a building large enough to store 90 Boeing 747 airplanes.

Now replace the planes with 850 gaming tables (with room to expand to 1150 tables) and 4100 poker machines (with room to expand to 7,000 poker machines), retail space for 350 stores, 1.2 million square feet of convention space (and its own permanent Cirque de Soleil troupe and dedicated theatre), a sports stadium that will hold 15,000 people, and a 3000-suite hotel.

The complex comes complete with lagoons and canals and singing gondoliers, but with a Chinese touch. Chinese-style sampans as well as gondolas will sail down its canals. The resort also features a replica of Venice's St. Mark's Square.

It will eventually have its own ferry terminus to bring visitors from Hong Kong because the existing ferry terminal is already at capacity. Adelson is also planning his own flights to and from the underutilised international airport, to bring in guests from Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Korea, Indonesia and Singapore.

The Venetian has hired 15,000 people, or 5 per cent of the city's workforce.

Adelson already spent the equivalent of Macau's public works budget for the past five years to realize his vision to transform the once insignificant former Portuguese enclave that returned to Chinese rule in 1999 into the hub of Asia's convention, exhibition and gaming industry.

FUTURE COTAI STRIP PROJECTS

Macau's casinos are located on a peninsula connected to mainland China and the outlying Cotai island.

The Cotai strip, which comprises reclaimed land that now joins the former islands of Coloane and Taipa, has been a vast construction site for 18 months, starting with the opening of Galaxy's Grand Waldo in May 2006.

The first casino in Macau for Adelson's Las Vegas Sands Corporation was the Sands Macau waterfront casino, part of the traditional casino area called "The Peninsula". At the time it was the world's biggest casino, with 740 tables and more than 1200 poker machines.

The Sands recouped its $US260 million investment in eight months and is now providing the cash flow for Adelson's far more ambitious Cotai strip dreams.

Adelson plans to open more hotels under brands such as Four Seasons, Sheraton and St. Regis next door to the Venetian.

In all, his Las Vegas Sands Corp., which also runs the Sands Macao on the Macau peninsula, plans to invest up to $12 billion and build 20,000 hotel rooms on the Cotai Strip by 2010.

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