The New York Times news 11/27 (427 words)

Macau Gambling Industry Faces Challenges on Multiple Fronts

By NEIL GOUGHNOV. 26, 2015

The New York Times

(part)MACAU — Macau’s newest gambling palace has plenty to beckon deep-pocketed Chinese visitors looking for a good time.

The $3.2 billion hotel complex, Studio City, includes the usual collection of restaurants, bars and luxury watch and clothing shops. It offers family-friendly attractions like a Batman-themed flight simulator and a play area with rides based on Warner Bros. cartoon and comic book characters. It even features a Ferris wheel in the shape of a figure eight built into the Art Deco hotel facade — part of an overall effect the developer calls “Gotham City with asteroids shot through.”

There is one attraction, though, it is short of: gambling tables.

A few weeks before it opened in October, the local government announced that the casino would initially be permitted only 200 tables — half the number that Studio City’s owners had planned. The decision undermined the developers’ financial assumptions, forcing them to negotiate a waiver from their creditors on requirements for the casino’s size.

The local government started regulating the number of casino tables years ago to temper growth when the Macau market was booming. But the policy is now forcing a broad recalculation for casino operators, as this former Portuguese colony has been dealt a challenging hand.

As gambling revenue has dropped over the last year, Macau’s casino developers have been making a huge bet on mass-market tourism, with big investments in hotel rooms, retail space, shows and family-oriented attractions.

These projects received financing and started construction a few years ago, when Macau was still growing fast. Including Studio City, developers are collectively spending about $20 billion on a wave of mammoth resorts scheduled to open in the next year or two on the Cotai Strip, a stretch of reclaimed land that has become the city’s main casino district.

The challenge is that the developers are counting on gambling revenue to initially offset those investments. And the number of tables is crucial in Macau. Casinos here rely on table games for 95 percent of their gambling revenue, compared with roughly 50 percent in Las Vegas, where slots play a big role.

Studio City will not only be short of the tables it had planned, but it will also be the first casino in more than a decade without any private gambling rooms for high rollers — making the stakes even higher for that flight simulator and Ferris wheel to attract guests.

“Studio City is going to be the absolute litmus test for the mass market,” said Ben Lee, the managing partner at IGamiX Management and Consulting, which focuses on the gambling industry.

澳門最新的賭博天堂正式邀請深口袋的中國遊客們來這享受美好時光。

Studio City，用3.2億元打造的複合式飯店，集結餐廳，酒吧和奢侈品牌鐘錶及服飾商店，也提供闔家歡樂的遊樂設施，包括模擬蝙蝠俠座車和華納兄弟卡通漫畫街，甚至在其中一間Art Deco 飯店前方蓋了一個八角摩天輪。被遊客們稱為是有小行星飛行的高譚市。

但最吸引人的還是：賭博桌。

幾個星期前飯店剛開張，當地政府原先只准賭場擺設200張賭桌，比Studio City負責人規劃的少了一半。政府的規定讓投資人卻步，逼迫他們協議放棄對賭場規模需求提供相關的資助。

政府幾年前為了抑制澳門市場快速成長，便開始控制賭桌數量。但現在這個政策逼得賭場經營者重新考慮，因為這個前葡萄牙殖民地已經發了一手好牌等待挑戰。

去年適逢賭場利潤下滑，開發澳門賭場的人打算下注在觀光客這個大市場上，大肆投入資金在飯店房間，逛街空間，表演秀跟吸引家庭共襄盛舉的設施上。

這些計畫幾年前開始進行融資跟建設，當時澳門還是進步得很快。包括Studio City在內，近年將開張用重金20億元打造的度假村，就在路氹城金光大道這個主要賭場區域，一大片的填海土地。

挑戰就在於開發商必須拿捏賭博利潤跟投入資金的消長。而賭桌的數量在澳門頗為重要，比起拉斯維加斯這吃角子老虎機當道的地方，賭桌收入約佔賭場收入50%，澳門賭場則高達95%。

Studio City不但賭桌少於原先規劃，他也是第一個10年多以來沒有VIP私人空間的賭場，把錢都賭在模擬飛行器跟摩天輪上了。

關注博弈市場的IGamiX李姓合夥人說，「這樣下去Studio City就要變成這市場唯一的試金石了。」

front (n.) 正面
beckon (v.) 向...示意
facade (n.) 表面
asteroid (n.) 小行星
waiver (n.) 棄權
temper (v.) 緩和
dealt (v.) 發牌
mammoth (adj.) 巨大的
litmus (n.) 石蕊