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Vitenam Casino Industry Eases Into Realization

Posted on November 24th, 2010

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As of the moment, the world’s casino industry is pinning its hopes on Asia. With the American gambling capitals Las Vegas and Atlantic City underperforming, companies based in the States but have Asian operations, particularly in Macau, have been faring better in revenues and other financial aspects. Thus, it has been expected for other Asian countries to follow suit in making casinos available in their areas. Singapore has made a splash with better than expected incomes of casinos found in two integrated resorts. In Vietnam, there have also been talk of casino projects which are currently shelved, as gambling facilities are not allowed in the country. Thus, more people are pushing for casinos to be legalized in Vietnam.

A casino in the area of Ho Tram has been spearheaded by an investor, the company ACDL. In April of this year, the company has appointed Lloyd Nathan as their project’s managing director. Nathan is an experienced businessman with a reputation in the world’s various casinos. The appointment created sufficient buzz because such a move would mean that the project may already be quite far in its implementation. Speculations rose that a casino in Ho Tram may after all, be more than just a project that will be left on paper.

Another project for the building of a casino project, headed by Hoang Dat Silver Shores has also been gathering steam. The casino, to be constructed in Da Nang City, has changed the project name, excluding the word “casino” in the project’s official name. As per a request by agencies manging the project, “casino” has been replaced with the word “club”. Insiders of the project, however, confirm that the plan is still connected to gambling facilities and its nature has not changed. Another casino project by the company Hoang Dong has also been announced. The location of the casino will be in Lang Son province. The more peculiar instance was that during the press announcement of the project, the project was not termed as a “casino” plan and any questions that reference to the project as a casino plan were not answered.

Vietnam has still not fully embraced gambling activities. Casinos and other gaming projects in the country are viewed as “sensitive business”. Current custom dictates that casinos can only be permitted conditionally. In the country’s history, there have been very few projects that have gotten operation licenses. The projects were only permitted because they were pitched as only a portion of a bigger project, like a resort, as in the custom in Singapore as well. As the practice of gambling is not allowed in Vietnam, the only clients allowed in existing casinos are foreigners. It is believed that the casinos currently in operation do welcome Vietnamese clients in clandestine conditions. But despite of the limited clientele, investors are still fervent on sticking to their plans on building casinos in the country, as they see the market as having huge potential.

Lam Bao Ky, an investor of the project with Hoang Dong and the General Director of Lang Son International Company, said that their target client base would be from China. He explained, “We choose Lang Son to set up the casino, because it is near China and Macau as well,” he said. Hoang Dong has modest hopes for the project, with projected earning to run at $1.6 billion, or just 1/10 of Macau’s casino turnover of $16 billion in 2009. Those modest projections, though, would already mean good business for a casino in Vietnam.

Some analysts, though, are mourning the fact that the country’s residents cannot gamble in their own country. As a result, although the Chinese may be filling the Vietnamese gaming halls, the income that could have been earned with Vietnamese clients are now with neighboring Cambodia’s casinos. Thus, it is inevitable to see experts throw support for legalization of gambling halls in Vietnam, so that the country’s casinos can be filled with Vietnamese as well. Businessmen deem this as something that would be very good for the industry.

Meanwhile, Nguyen Chi Dung, Chair of Ninh Thuan People’s Committee, is more concerned with the location of these casinos, which are usually limited to high-end resorts. He opined, “We should allow casinos to open in general tourism complexes in Vietnam. This will be a very important measure to develop tourism.”