Visitors queue outside the Venetian in Macao yesterday as the world's biggest casino opens. The US$2.4 billion resort, built by U.S. Las Vegas Sands Corp., aims to accelerate Macao's heady transformation from gambling haven to Asia's top entertainment draw. [Photo: SD-Agencies]
The world's largest casino-resort, a gaudy mix of baccarat, shops and Venetian canals, opened in Macao Tuesday.
The US$2.4 billion Venetian Macao resort, built on a spit of reclaimed land called the Cotai Strip, seeks to capitalize on the casino boom by getting the millions of visitors to stay for more than just a turn at the tables and aims to accelerate Macao's heady transformation from gambling haven to Asia's top entertainment draw.
With 3,000 hotel rooms, a theater, a 15,000-seat stadium and 350 shops, as well as the gambling arenas, it is the anchor of the Cotai project to recreate the Las Vegas Strip in the southern Chinese territory.
Sheldon Adelson, chief executive of Las Vegas Sands, which is operating the Venetian, said it was "the beginning of what has been a dream of mine."
"We are quite certain we are going to meet the expectations of everybody that has anticipated this arrival," he said.
Adelson said he believes that there is a pent-up demand for the resort and the rest of the Cotai Strip, which will eventually be home to more than a dozen top-end resorts offering more than 20,000 hotel rooms.
The Venetian Macao features 870 gaming tables and 3,400 slot machines ¡ª planned to rise to 6,000 ¡ª on floors as big as three football pitches.
Its shopping mall is woven between three canals, complete with a fleet of gondolas and fake sky.
In 2001, Macao liberalized its monopolistic gaming market once dominated by local tycoon Stanley Ho, and Sands was the first major American company to open a casino here in 2004. |
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