Time To Hit The Beach?

Flush from a run at the Asian VIP casino take, Aussie operators gird for a wider resorts battle.

- Muhammad Cohen

Australian casinos are all-in on Chinese. Last year, for the first time, the Lucky Country welcomed more than 1 million Chinese visitors, many eager to try their luck on trips for business, visiting relatives or sightseeing. The Chinese, particularly high rollers, have buoyed Australian casinos even as Macau’s ‘VIP’ gambling revenue has been cut in half.

President Xi Jinping’s anti corruption crackdown that’s devastated Macau may have initially helped Australia, but the game is changing. Now, as elsewhere, it’s shifting to resort attractions for a wider market, with two big domestic rivals leading the chase.

Those would be Crown Resorts, 53 percent owned by billionaire James Packer, and The Star Entertainment Group, formerly Echo Entertainment, which grew out of the old Tabcorp state gambling franchise. A distant third player in most counts of the Aussie action is SkyCity, with properties in Adelaide and Darwin and three in New Zealand.

The groundwork for this battle was laid in a three-year run during which the key Aussie casino operators racked up 58 percent gains in their ‘international commission business’ betting volume—to $92 billion by fiscal year 2015, which ended that June. Morgan Stanley estimates that by then Australia had 8 percent of the world’s VIP gambling revenue, or casino win.

“Players from all Asia regions, particularly Chinese players, have provided the growth in the market and made up for any falls from local players in what’s been a tough Australian economy in recent years,” says Global Market Advisors partner Shaun McCamley, formerly a senior casino executive in Australia and east Asia.