The Philippines makes its biggest bet this weekend in a high-stakes bid
to join the world’s elite gaming destinations, with the launch of a
US$1.2-billion casino on Manila Bay.
Solaire Manila Resorts is the first of four enormous entertainment
venues slated to rise over a giant chunk of prime, reclaimed land that
industry and government leaders expect will attract millions of
cashed-up Asian tourists.
“What Solaire brings is an entertainment and gaming experience that
doesn’t exist in the Philippines today,” its American chief operating
officer, Michael French, told AFP in an interview this week ahead of
Saturday’s opening.
“It will be like going to Las Vegas. This raises the scale, the excitement and the… glamour.”
Controlled by billionaire Philippine port operator Enrique Razon,
Solaire has 300 gaming tables, 1,200 slot machines and seven
restaurants. The building also has 500 hotel rooms and 2,000 parking
slots.
It features glass ceilings filtering abundant tropical sunlight, huge
chandeliers, thick red-themed carpets, blown glass wall-to-ceiling
panels, water pools and an army of cocktail waitresses in tiny red
dresses.
Another wing is being built to add 300 all-suite hotel rooms, 30-40
high-end shops and a theatre where French plans to host travelling
Broadway shows as well as local and foreign lounge acts.
Meanwhile, preparations are underway for the launch of the three other
big-ticket casinos, which all involve major foreign backers. The four
will together make up “Entertainment City”, located near Manila’s
airport.
The Belle Grande — a joint venture with the Philippines’ richest man,
Henry Sy, Australian billionaire James Packer and Macau gaming tycoon
Lawrence Ho — is slated to open next year, with its golden facade
already having been built.
Japanese gambling magnate Kazuo Okada and Malaysia’s Genting Group are
involved in the other two, each in partnership with local
Chinese-Filipino tycoons. Both are expected to open between 2015 and
2017.
Cristino Naguiat, head of state regulator Philippine Amusement and
Gaming Corp, told AFP he expected Philippine gaming revenues to double
this year to US$2.0 billion because of the Solaire opening.
When all four are open, Entertainment City is expected to boost the
country’s annual gaming revenues up to US$10.0 billion, he said.
The nation’s existing gambling revenues come from 13 relatively small
casinos around the country run by Pagcor, the gaming regulator, and a
bigger one in Manila run by Genting and a Filipino tycoon that opened in
2009.
While Macau counts US$38.0 billion in annual revenues, Naguiat is
confident the Philippines will eventually have one of the biggest
gambling industries in the world, comparing it with the Las Vegas
strip’s roughly US$6.0-billion turnover.
“We will beat Las Vegas. I’m pretty sure of that,” he said.
Naguiat said the casinos were mainly targeting gamblers from Asia,
pointing out that Manila was a mere 3-4 hours away by plane from any
point in China, Japan and South Korea, where many of the world’s high
rollers live.
“Actually it’s a no-brainer. The big market is here in Asia,” he said.
Naguiat said that to make it easier for the foreign gamblers, a skyway
roadlink to Manila airport is due to open in two years that will allow
them to avoid the city’s notorious gridlock and reach Entertainment City
in just five minutes.
The government has further sweetened the offer by taking just 27 per
cent in taxes off winnings for normal gamblers, compared with Macau’s 40
per cent, according to Naguiat.
High rollers have it even better, with winnings taxed at just 15 per cent.
Naguiat said he saw Entertainment City as the key to the government’s
ambitious bid to attract 10 million tourists a year and create more jobs
in a country where a fourth of the workforce is unemployed or
underemployed.
About 4.6 million tourists visited the country last year, compared with about 14 million for Singapore and 28 million for Macau.
He said Entertainment City should easily employ 40,000 Filipinos when all four venues are open.
More than 50,000 Filipinos, some of them among nine million working in
other countries, applied for 4,500 Solaire jobs last year, according to
French.
About 400 Filipino expatriates were brought back, including Filipino
dealers and pit bosses from casinos in Macau and Singapore who were
given managerial posts.
Others were chefs and hotel staff, including more than 20 from the
Emirates Palace of Abu Dhabi, touted as the world’s most opulent hotel.
However the casinos are stirring controversy in the mainly Roman
Catholic nation, with critics saying the government’s embrace of
gambling to solve the country’s financial woes is a dangerous signal.
“It gives false hope to people that they can find solutions to their
financial problems by gambling,” Catholic priest Rolly Flores, whose Our
Lady of Sorrows church lies three kilometres (less than two miles)
away, told AFP.
“Only gambling lords thrive when people lose money by gambling.”
