Paris Comes To Asia's Casino Hub Macau With New Sands Resort

Macau: The southern Chinese casino gambling powerhouse of Macau is getting a French twist. U.S. billionaire Sheldon Adelson is set to throw open the doors Tuesday to the French-themed Parisian Macao, the mogul's fifth property in the former Portuguese colony.

The $2.7 billion casino resort comes complete with a half-size replica of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It's the second American-owned resort to launch in Macau in less than a month, following the mid-August opening of Steve Wynn's $4.2 billion Wynn Palace.

The opening comes just as the extended downturn in Macau's gambling revenues shows signs of bottoming out. Casino revenues rose 1.1 percent in August, the first monthly expansion after 26 straight months of declining growth.

The tiny enclave near Hong Kong is the only place in China where casinos are legal.

After years of supercharged growth that transformed Macau into the world's top casino gambling market, earnings have slowed as China's economy decelerates and President Xi Jinping cracks down on corruption, crimping lavish spending by mainland Chinese high-rollers. Still, with annual gambling revenues last year of $29 billion, its market is still about four times bigger than the Las Vegas Strip's.

Macau's gambling regulator recently granted the Parisian, operated by the Chinese unit of Adelson's Las Vegas Sands Corp., 100 new gambling tables for its launch and 50 more over the next two years.

Another 310 tables will be brought over from other Sands resorts, according to local news reports.
Attractions at the Parisian will include street performances by mimes and cancan dancers and a shopping mall modeled on the Champs-Elysees and other famed Paris streets

Authorities want the city's six casino operators to diversify away from reliance on high-spending visitors by adding more family-friendly attractions to their new resorts, to help raise Macau's profile as an Asian tourist destination. The emphasis on mass market attractions also reflects Beijing's fears over capital flight via Macau, where middlemen known as junket operators help skirt China's capital controls by lending money to wealthy visitors from the mainland.
 

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)