SANYA, CHINA — Placing bets on green-felt baccarat tables in a new casino bar on Hainan, a resort island in southern China, visitors seem oblivious to a huge wager quietly being made around them — one that could siphon business from Macau, the world’s largest gambling hub, an hour’s flight away.
For now, players at the casino bar, Jesters — part of the Mangrove Tree Resort World, which opened late last year on Sanya Bay — cannot win cash, only points they can use at the resort to pay for accommodation, luxury goods, jewelry and artwork.
Owned by Zhang Baoquan, an art, film and real estate mogul, the casino bar is the Chinese government’s first approval, albeit tacit, of a gambling concept outside Macau and apart from two state-run lotteries. Global investors, including some of the biggest casino companies, are watching.
“Our casino bar is the first in the country,” Mr. Zhang said in an interview at his 23rd-floor office overlooking the 70-hectare, or 173-acre, property. “The government is monitoring. It’s a test.”
“Right now we are not at this stage,” he added, referring to whether casino gambling was being legalized in mainland China. “But my personal opinion is, in future, there is a big possibility that they will have.”
The stakes are enormous — casinos in Macau, the former Portuguese colony that is now a special administrative region of China, posted $38 billion in gambling revenue last year, primarily from mainland Chinese players. If Beijing were to allow gambling elsewhere in the country, the cash would follow.
Last year, MGM Resorts International opened a hotel in Sanya, a popular tourist destination on Hainan Island, and a fellow U.S. casino operator, Caesars Entertainment, plans to open a hotel in 2014.
When asked about gambling in Hainan, an MGM spokesman said the company had no plan to introduce “anything of this kind.” Caesars did not respond to requests for comment.
Dressed in jeans and a black-and-white Hawaiian shirt during his interview, the 56-year-old Mr. Zhang — ranked by Forbes magazine as one of the 300 richest people in China in 2012 with a fortune estimated at $600 million — said he aimed to create an integrated resort, similar to those in Las Vegas, Macau and Singapore, where gambling, convention space and retail outlets were offered together.
Mangrove Tree Resort World, the newest addition to Hainan’s rapidly developing hotel industry, will be one of the biggest resorts in mainland China, when construction is completed next year. It is to have more than 4,000 rooms, a convention hall able to accommodate 6,000 people and a water park.
It is one of 10 integrated resorts that Mr. Zhang is developing around the country, including another in Sanya and others in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, and Qingdao, on the northeast coast.
While the Chinese government does not permit casinos on the mainland, Mr. Zhang said Hainan could become an exception. Sensitive to existing restrictions, the soft-spoken businessman emphasized that along with casino bars, cultural attractions like art galleries would be incorporated into the planned resorts.
Inside Jesters, the Sanya resort, with its garish chandeliers and a ceiling made to look like a giant roulette wheel, players buy tickets costing 500 renminbi, or $80, apiece. Bets range from 20 to 2,000 renminbi in the low-rollers’ area, while the high-limits bets run from 2,000 to 100,000 renminbi. Patrons will be able to bet more that 100,000 renminbi, once the V.I.P. room opens on the second floor.
The casino bar, with 50 gambling tables now, is open only to hotel guests, but when the resort is completed, local residents are to be allowed in.
When players win, they receive points that can be used to buy products available in the casino, like an iPad 3G or a Rimowa suitcase.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/business/global/possible-challenge-to-macau-gambling-takes-shape-in-hainan.html?partner=rss&emc=rss