Singapore’s first casino “ready” to open awaits gaming license

Genting Singapore’s stock added as much as 4 % 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 license.”

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 license 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 license 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 % in Singapore. The stock climbed 200 % in the past year, compared with a 67 % gain for the benchmark Straits Times Index.