The global gambling industry’s biggest names are struggling for a coveted piece of the Far East.
Macau, the sole area of China to offer legalized gambling, is experiencing record sustained growth — and attracting intense scrutiny from local and foreign casino investors.
Las Vegas Sands, currently the world’s most valuable casino business, has opened an initial public offering for the Sands China, hoping to raise $3.35 billion. Regular readers may recall that Wynn Resorts only recently opened their own IPO on the Wynn Macau, beating Sands to the post but suffering from a stock slide since the offering.
Sands currently operates two casino resorts in Macau, with nearly one-quarter of the market. The current Cotai Strip project has seen starts and stops, but the new IPO is a strategy to ease debts and finish construction of the five integrated resorts.
Wynn Resorts, on the other hand, is expanding the company’s Wynn Macau resort and simultaneously planning to construct the integrated Encore at Wynn Macau to broaden their third-place market share. Yet Wynn may be considered as risking less on the plans, considering their relative financial health.
Locally, neither company holds the current top market share; Stanley Ho’s SJM Holdings is still number one. Galaxy Entertainment is the wild card, having triple its market share and on track to compete with the foreign firms.
