Towering bets

Written on June 21, 2006 by admin

June 20, 2006

The Hong Kong Standard | For decades, the Casino Lisboa sat at the center of Macau's gambling industry: crowded, smoky, surly, gaudy, decadent and obscenely profitable.The limelight shifted two years ago with the opening of two competing casinos, the Galaxy Waldo and the Sands Macau, midway between the Lisboa and the city ferry terminal. Keen to make a splash, the newcomers lured away gamblers, investors, staff and partners with promises of better treatment and a new deal.

This fall, the Casino Lisboa will once again be at the center of attention. The gilded cage isn't getting another facelift, but rather a ring of three towering new neighbors: the unconventional, three-tier, HK$2.5 billion Galaxy StarWorld, the bronze, arcing, HK$8.5 billion Wynn Macau and a bigger and better version of the original, the HK$3 billion Grand Lisboa rising like a lotus flower with a huge golden egg at its base.