Macau to get Vegas style billion dollar makeover

Officials are hoping to bring a bit of Vegas glitz to Macau's gaming industry

MACAU, China (Reuters) -- Top Las Vegas gambling moguls promised well over a billion dollars this week to makeover Macau's seedy casino scene.

This will include an indoor version of Venice's Grand Canal complete with singing gondoliers.

The pledges came during back-to-back whirlwind tours made by tycoon Steve Wynn and an aide of Sheldon Adelson, whose companies won two of three lucrative casino concessions earlier this month as part of Macau's strategy to break a 40-year-old monopoly.

At stake for the Americans is billions of dollars in revenues a year and easier access to Asia's legendary high rollers.

Macau borders mainland China and is a short boat ride from Hong Kong, neither allow casinos.

The economy of the tiny territory ground to a virtual standstill in the late 1990s and many of its 440,000 residents hope a revival of the key casino and tourism industries will give it a much needed boost.

One billion dollar investment

Adelson's aide William Weidner revealed that Galaxy Casino would build a 15,000-square metre "Great Casino Hall" of gaming tables and slot machines, with a complex to host trade shows and conferences and a Venetian-style street.

Galaxy is a joint venture led by the owner of the famed Venetian casino in Las Vegas.

The Galaxy-Venetian project would also feature an indoor Grand Canal replete with crooning gondoliers, an art museum, and an entertainment showroom with seating for 2,000 people.

Macau's Secretary for Economy and Finance, Francis Tam, told reporters Galaxy planned to invest a whopping $1.1 billion in the project and the deal is expected to be inked in March.

Galaxy's main non-American partners are Hong Kong property tycoon Lui Chi-wo and Pedro Ho On-chun from Macau.

Blast, but no apparent fears

Stanley Ho's 11 casinos contribute more than $5 billion a year to government coffers

Weidner's visit came a day after a brief one-day stop by the flamboyant Wynn, who developed the Mirage and Bellagio casinos in Las Vegas.

Wynn said he will invest at least $500 million in Macau's gaming industry although he has declined to give details.

The third concession was won by Sociedade de Jogos de Macau, a company belonging to Stanley Ho, who will soon see an end to his 40-year gaming monopoly.

Ho's SJM has committed to invest $585 million (4.7 billion patacas).

However, the visit by the U.S. entrepreneurs was marred by a suspected car bomb explosion early on Thursday, which tore up the front of a Mercedes Benz limousine and slightly injured one man.

Lisbon's lax administration emboldened criminal elements in the years approaching Macau's handover but the number of gangland turf wars, robberies and bomb explosions fell sharply after communist China took over in December 1999.

Asked about Macau's public security, Weidner said: "Anything that deters tourists from coming to a place would affect it, but not knowing the circumstances it is hard to react now."

But he said he was "confident that the region will remain stable" and added that Macau's post-handover administration had "done a great job to control crime."

Weidner indicated that the Galaxy complex may be located on Macau's Taipa Island and that phase one of the project would take three to four years to build.

Macau's government expects to complete detailed negotiations with the three concessionaires by the end of March, when Ho's monopoly franchise is due to expire.