A year after the 2010 opening of its two casinos, Singapore tied the Las Vegas Strip as the world's second-biggest gambling market by revenue. The city's casinos have boosted tourism and lured high-rollers by offering bets of up to one million Singapore dollars (US$800,000), the highest maximum wagers in the world.
But after a stunning debut, the casinos have stopped growing, due in part to the government's reluctance to let them expand or relax its strict gambling rules.
As a result, investors, spoiled by seemingly endless growth in the Chinese haven of Macau and other new casino hubs springing up across Asia, have soured on Singapore's resorts. "There's little investor interest in Singapore," says Ben Lee, managing partner at casino consultancy iGamix. "They've given up."
The government isn't likely to change its policies any time soon, said Eugene Tan, a member of parliament and an associate law professor at Singapore Management University who studies casinos. The city, he said, wants to show that its casinos—the most profitable on the planet—are also the world's best regulated.
A year after the 2010 opening of its two casinos, Singapore tied the Las Vegas Strip as the world's second-biggest gambling market by revenue. The city's casinos have boosted tourism and lured high-rollers by offering bets of up to one million Singapore dollars (US$800,000), the highest maximum wagers in the world.
But after a stunning debut, the casinos have stopped growing, due in part to the government's reluctance to let them expand or relax its strict gambling rules.
As a result, investors, spoiled by seemingly endless growth in the Chinese haven of Macau and other new casino hubs springing up across Asia, have soured on Singapore's resorts. "There's little investor interest in Singapore," says Ben Lee, managing partner at casino consultancy iGamix. "They've given up."
The government isn't likely to change its policies any time soon, said Eugene Tan, a member of parliament and an associate law professor at Singapore Management University who studies casinos. The city, he said, wants to show that its casinos—the most profitable on the planet—are also the world's best regulated.
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