Genting Singapore Plc is ready to start operating Singapore’s first legal casino as soon as the city state’s government issues its gaming licence, the company said today.
Genting Singapore’s stock added as much as 4 per cent this morning on speculation gambling may begin at the company’s Resorts World Sentosa complex as soon as February’s Chinese New Year holiday.
“We are ready,” Robin Goh, a spokesman for Resorts World, said. “We can open the casino as soon as we have the licence.”
Four hotels and 10 restaurants within the US$4.5 billion Sentosa island complex will begin accepting guests from January 20. A Universal Studios theme park in the complex is also waiting for a licence to operate, and will open as soon as that is issued, Goh said.
A second casino resort, the Marina Bay Sands, being built by Las Vegas Sands Corp, will open later after encountering construction delays. Singapore announced in April 2005 it was overturning a ban on casinos that had been in place since independence. Resorts World and Marina Bay are the only two casino developments approved so far.
“We believe they, Resorts World, will get their gaming licence before Chinese New Year,” Aaron Fischer, a gaming analyst at CLSA Asia Pacific Markets in Hong Kong, said in a telephone interview. “We expect gaming revenues to be bigger. There is a huge gaming market in Southeast Asia.”
In a report published last month, CLSA Asia Pacific Markets said it estimates Resorts World’s gaming revenue to rise from US$2.5 billion this year to US$3.8 billion by 2013. The Singapore casino market will generate US$3 billion in revenue this year, growing to US$6 billion in 2013, CLSA said in the report.
Genting Singapore gained 3.2 per cent to S$1.29 as of 2:30 pm in Singapore. The stock climbed 200 per cent in the past year, compared with a 67 per cent gain for the benchmark Straits Times Index. -- Bloomberg
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