Marina Bay Resort and Casino.Singapore
Marina Bay Resort and Casino. Singapore
Despite being one of the world’s top casino gambling destinations, Singapore is a mere shadow of Macau or Las Vegas. The nation broke with its Asian conservatism to allow the first two casinos to be established in 2010 as part of so-called integrated resorts, the Marina Bay Sands downtown and the Resorts World Sentosa on Sentosa Island, off southern Singapore.
In doing so, the country took a highly regulated, calibrated approach that tried to find a balance between the need to stay ahead of the competition as a tourist destination while also introducing safeguards to shelter the local population from the social ills of gambling.
"Many governments like Japan want to study the Singapore model, maybe [because] we have effectively pioneered one in which we are able to extract the maximum benefits of casino gaming and yet minimising the downside, minimising because you can’t run away from the fact that there will be social disamenities,” said Eugene Tan, associate professor of law at the Singapore Management University.
From the beginning, the government did not envision Singapore becoming another Las Vegas or Macau. As Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in 2005 when he announced the cabinet’s decision to allow casinos: "We are not aiming to become like Las Vegas or Macau, where gambling is the main industry. We will not allow casinos to sport garish neon displays on the facades and have jackpot machines everywhere.”
The government made clear that casinos would have to be part of integrated resorts, and should occupy less than 3 % of the total area of the resort.
Source: GMB / scmp.com
