While the possible opening up of the gaming industry could be a boon for Taiwan’s economy, pundits say Taiwan is not ready to open its doors to the casino cash cow.
“Taiwan is strategically placed to capture a share of the regional casino market,” said David Green, a gaming practice director of PricewaterhouseCoopers (Macau) Ltd.
Home to quite a few high rollers who presently go elsewhere to gamble, Taiwan is adjacent to China and is closer to Japan and South Korea than Macau — the Asian gaming Mecca — Green told the Taipei Times in an e-mail interview.
There are some issues, however, that Taiwan needs to address in order to successfully develop a destination casino industry, including the regulatory standards it will adopt, the tax rates and license fees it will apply, the alignment of investment requirements and realistic projections of the market.
“Taiwan shouldn’t expect developments of the size of those in Macau and Singapore,” he said.
The government should also determine the kind of access restrictions there will be to the casinos, Green said.
That includes whether locals would be able to play, the number of casinos permitted, whether their opening hours would be limited and if a licensee would be able to set the number of tables and machines it operates, Green said.
“Taiwan does present a unique risk profile, but also a significant opportunity, though the latter will be constrained if gaming is restricted to the outlying islands,” he said.
Policymakers in Singapore, which is hoping to rival Macau with two massive new casino projects set to open early next year, have from the beginning taken a more conservative approach.
Unlike Macau, Singapore’s Casino Control Act of 2006 only allows two casinos to operate for 10 years, one run by Sands and the other by Malaysia’s Genting BHD.
The approaches it has taken include higher minimum age limits for casino entry and stricter laws about where gambling machines can be located.
They have also introduced a raft of laws aimed at guarding against gambling-related social problems.
Taiwan has been caught in a debate about legalizing casinos for the past 20 years.
In January, the government finally legalized casinos on the outlying islands of Kinmen, Matsu and Penghu, realizing President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) policy pledge during his presidential campaign.
However, establishing casinos must be approved in a referendum by local residents, while casinos remain banned on Taiwan proper.
More than 42 percent of Penghu’s 73,651 eligible voters turned out to decide the fate of casinos in the archipelago county in a September referendum.
A total of 17,359 votes, or 56.44 percent, voted against opening casinos. The referendum cannot be held in Penghu again for another three years.
This crushed the hopes of Isle of Man-based AMZ Holdings PLC, which owns 11 hectares of land on Penghu and has said it hoped to win a casino license to build a US$300 million, five-star, 500-room resort.
“My feeling is that Penghu was not the preferred location for investors. Kinmen is certainly more attractive because of its location, assuming mainlanders are able to travel there to gamble,” Green said.
Even if the Penghu referendum were to have offered the green light, whether Taiwan has enough personnel to cope with the influx of gamblers around Asia is another issue.
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