Casinos in Taiwan may generate US$3 billion in total annual revenue should legislation to legalize the industry be passed, according to Las Vegas-based industry magnate Larry Woolf, who manages 13 casinos in North America.
"I don't think it'd be too much of a struggle to reach US$1 billion" in revenue each should the government allow three casinos, Woolf, chief executive officer of London-listed Amazing Holdings Plc, said in an interview in Taipei.
The government is considering allowing casinos on islands such as Penghu. Woolf, 63, is betting the legislation will be passed, paving the way for Amazing to open the nation's first casino as rivals Wynn Resorts Ltd and Las Vegas Sands Corp expand in Macau, which reaped US$9.5 billion in gambling revenue in the 12 months to Sept. 30.
"Taiwan's market potential for casino gaming revenue, in the context of large-scale integrated resort and tourism development, is significant," said Jonathan Galaviz, of Las Vegas-based hotel and casino consultancy Globalysis Ltd.
Amazing, which is based in the Isle of Man, plans to spend US$50 million on the first phase of a 300-room hotel resort in Penghu to be opened by the end of 2009, Woolf said. The development, which will eventually be expanded to 600 rooms, is designed to accommodate a casino should the company win a license.
Shares of Amazing, which are listed on the London Stock Exchange's Alternative Investment Market, have surged 61 percent this year and closed at 240 pence each on Thursday.
Woolf, a 40-year casino veteran, built and operated the MGM Grand in Las Vegas which was then the world's largest casino, and opened the most profitable, the Casino Niagara in Canada. His Navegante Group Inc manages at least seven casinos in the US, including the Plaza Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas and the Casino Fandango in Carson City, both in Nevada.
Now Woolf says Taiwan could build the world's largest casino, surpassing the 800-table Venetian Macau opened by Sheldon Adelson's Las Vegas Sands in August.
The DPP government is discussing the feasibility of casinos and seeking public approval before opening up the market, the Government Information Office said in an Aug. 9 statement.
A December 2005 plebiscite of Penghu residents found 57 percent in favor of legalizing casinos, although the turnout for the vote was just 21 percent.
In addition to Penghu, Woolf recently visited Chiayi County, which he says would also be a possible site for a subsequent casino should Amazing be allowed multiple licenses.
"It would take several years and billions of dollars of public and private sector investment to make Taiwan, or one of its islands, into a premiere leisure tourism destination such as Macau," Galaviz said.
Macau's tax rate on casino revenue is 35 percent, compared with Taiwan's corporate tax rate of 25 percent. A tax rate on gambling is yet to be set.
"I like this market more than Macau, especially if the tax rate is lower," Woolf said in the interview on Monday.
Macau's gambling revenue in the third quarter was 20.5 billion patacas (US$2.6 billion), 45 percent higher than a year earlier and up 4 percent on the previous quarter.
Taiwanese make up the largest portion of non-Chinese visitors to Macau's resorts with many also traveling to Las Vegas to gamble, according to Henry Tsai (
"In Taiwan, there's a huge amount of unaccounted economic losses from underground gambling," Tsai said. The government should "turn this effort around and legalize gambling or make it a formal economic activity."
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day