MACAU - Has Macau toppled Las Vegas as the world’s top gambling destination?

eTN Asia, 27-10-2006

Macau appears to have overtaken the famous Las Vegas Strip as the world's top gambling destination.In a major disclosure, it is being acknowledged that Macau has become the world’s top gambling destination. The latest earnings figures from the southern Chinese territory showed it had probably topped Las Vegas.
Macau is set to earn $6.8bn (£3.6bn) in casino revenues in 2006 compared with Las Vegas' $6.6bn, say leisure industry consultants Globalysis.

According to AFP, by the estimates of leading Vegas-based leisure industry consultancy Globalysis, “Macau is just ahead of the cluster of casinos on Nevada’s most famous boulevard.”

“Yep, the recent numbers look like our estimate for 2006 will come in line -- currently, the monthly run rate for Las Vegas would put it at an annualised revenue rate of 6.6 billion dollars, approximately,” Globalysis’ partner Jonathin Galaviz reportedly said. “At Macau’s current month run rate, it now exceeds that of the Las Vegas strip by about 20 million dollars, so it looks.”

“Gambling earnings have boomed in Macau since 2001 when the government ended tycoon Stanley Ho’s 40-year monopoly on casinos in the city and allowed foreign operators to move in. The result has been a sudden rush of up to 25 billion dollars of mostly American cash into the once-moribund century-old local industry. Growth has been fuelled by a similarly explosive rise in tourism from China, following the relaxation of travel restrictions from the mainland in the wake of the former Portuguese enclave's reversion to Chinese rule in 1999,” the report added.

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