No, not profits from lending to gamblers and loan sharks but from raising money for Sands.
Las Vegas Sands, controlled by Sheldon Anderson, hired DBS Bank, OCBC Bank and UOB to coordinate a S$4.6bn loan for Marina Bay Sands, Bloomberg News reports. The loan may be split into a S$4.1 billion term facility and a S$500 million revolving credit facility.
When I read On Saturday that Marina Bay Sands (MBS) had finally decided to concede, I wondered whether the initial refusal to pay was because the person in question was a lady, a hawker, and a S’porean? Was MBS trying to take advantage of her?
I then wondered if he or she (an FT perhaps?) picked up this attitude because of the perception among may S’poreans and FTs that the governing PAP is forever trying to put one over S’poreans, especially the less educated and well-off? Finally, I wondered if there were lessons for the PAP too in this PR disaster for MBS?
Mdm Choo had visited MBS casino on 18 October and won a jackpot of S$416,742.11. The casino told her that the machine had malfunctioned. She was offered a sports car worth S$258,962 and S$50,000 in cash instead. She refused the offer because there was CCTV camera footage and witnesses (including casino staff) to support her account.
It was reported on Saturday that an MBS spokesperson said in a statement, “Marina Bay Sands regrets any confusion over the numbers displayed when Madam Choo Hong Eng won the Lotus Evora slot jackpot in our casino … After carefully reviewing this matter, [MBS] will pay the patron the amount that was displayed on the slot machine … We deeply regret the inconveniences caused.”
The difference was S$107780.11, “peanuts” in money-terms to the casino. Granted the difference was 26%, but management should have paid up on the spot, or soon thereafter to avoid bad publicity: “Customers can come to lose but not win any money” was the message that the Heartlanders got. MBS can be assured that Chinese punters from neighbouring Malaysia will get the same message.
Now now only did it admit that the machine had displayed what the lady had claimed, thereby suffering more adverse publicity; but the Casino Regulatory Authority is investigating whether MBS broke the law.
MBS is in triple jeopardy for trying to take advantage of a lowly educated lady S’porean hawker? Come the next general election, will the PAP pay a heavy price if the less educated and well- off S’poreans still think that they are being taken advantage of by the PAP?
Finally why the does local media keep calling the lady a hawker juz because that’s her occupation is beyond me. The reporters and editors see her no “ak”? Or juz envious of her gd luck?
Because S’pore wants a casino to be only part of an Integrated Resort, the resort owner only pays 17% tax. In Macau, which is less squimish abt living off the gambling industry, the tax rate is 39%
Between April and November 2010 the IRs paid S$420m in taxes.
If the IRS here had to pay 39% tax, S’pore would have collected S$544m more.
Marina Bay’s 57th-floor “skypod”, the infinity “skypool”, the world’s biggest ballroom and a huge shopping centre., and RWS’s Universal Studios set, and its continued detention of Flipper’s friends, are only possible because of the 17% tax rate.
I’d forgo all these for more money.
The casinos have done better than anyone could have dreamed of. Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa generated $420 million in net revenue for the government between April and November last year.And also collected $130 million in casino entry levies on behalf of the Tote Board for the same period.
Too bad Turf Club and clubs scan0009.
But it could have been better. I’m saying this as sumeone who tot S’pore had missed the cruse boat on casinos first by refusing to allow them until 2004 (mid 1990s would have been “betterest”) and by insisting that casinos play down the mass market side of the trade with the integrated resort and high roller concepts. The govmin wanted casinos as part of IRs. It wanted high rollers in dinner jackets, dancing gals and dolphins, fancy eating places: anything but the ordinary punter.
The numbers show that casino and hence the tax revenues could be higher if not for the govmin. As Sentosa has shown with a vengeance, the ordinary punters from M’sia and S’pore with the help of middle class Indon tourists are the main stay of the casinos, not the high rollers the govmin wanted. And they don’t go there because of the food or gals or for anything else. They go to gamble.
And one problem why the high rollers are not coming: the rules on junket operators have not been finalised.
This takes me to the second “fly in the ointment”. Too tight the rules, and the operators will not bring in the high rollers. Too lax the rules, and there goes the banking and wealth mgt aspirations or worse. A reputation as a money laundering centre will kill the banking and wealth mgt industry overnight. The fear and danger is that serious money can be laundered by a few unscrupulous junket operators, the majority of whom focus on servicing genuine high rollers.
Uniquely S’pore: having as major driver-industries, gambling on one hand, and banking and wealth mgt industry on the other.
Analysts believe Singapore’s two casinos will produce gaming revenues of more than [US]$5 billion in the island nation’s first full year of legalized gambling.
… country’s leaders didn’t expect the popularity of gambling. The two casinos are attracting customers from throughout the region, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia, India and China.
Las Vegas Review-Journal article
I for one never tot it would be so gd, even though I’ve been for casinos for over 10 yrs. I tot is was an opportunity that GCT and LSL his economic $ financial czar missed. Better late than never.
