The minister also commented on his participation on the special mission to Las Vegas last year, which he considered very productive. “We were received by the American government. It was a mission composed by us, at the time I was president of Embratur, and representatives of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. We had access to the control of the integrated resorts, which are tourist facilities with convention center, hotels, shops, etc.,” he described.
Speaking of IRs, he gave the example of The Venetian, from the Las Vegas Sands group. “They have a convention center that receives almost 180,000 people a week. That crowd doesn't fit in its own hotel because it only has eleven thousand rooms. But it fills up all the hotels in the surrounding area. Besides that, there are more than 200 stores, restaurants, two theaters that perform concerts at the same time. When we were there, there were two concerts by Willie Nelson and Rod Stewart at the same time and they were both sold out. Not to mention the pools ... And there is also a part for the casino, which represents 24% of the revenue of an integrated resort.”
About controls, Gilson Machado commented that it is done by the American government and very well done. “He who is addicted to gambling cannot play there. That person is identified and take it away. So, if they set up a casino here or in Argentina and do something wrong here, they also lose the concession there because of compliance. They set up a casino in Singapore, and the American government oversees operation in the whole world.”
Although he received a series of data and information about the gaming activity in Las Vegas, through the University of Nevada, the Minister of Tourism said that the decision will be up to parliamentarians. “There are several projects in the National Congress. One of them is that of Senator Irajá Abreu, very similar to that of the Americans. Now, when Brazil opens for this business, we already have data that will come more than US$ 30 billion to be invested in the country… automatically.”
In his opinion, the integrated resorts will not spread throughout Brazil. “The region that casino owners would choose would be here in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro because they are close to airports. Las Vegas spent 90 years turning into Las Vegas. It is not that you arrive today in a poor region of Brazil, as in the Northeast, which has no structure and nothing. It will take you at least 20 years to be able to build an airport and develop everything,” evaluated Machado.
Source: GMB
