Top 5 most expensive casinos ever built
This post was originally written in 2010. It has now been updated to take into account new projects completed up until the end of 2018.
Funnily enough, in the 8 years or so since the list was originally compiled it has changed little with only the one new entrant: The Cosmopolitan. Perhaps the GFC, combined with a signifiant slowdown in Macau has taken the wind out of the sails of those with big casino development ambitions?
Back in 1989 Steve Wynn built the The Mirage Las Vegas at a cost of US$630 million. It was the most expensive hotel casino the world had yet seen and more than a few gaming analysts called him crazy. To meet the debt financing charges the casino would have to ‘make a nut’ of $1 million a day (ie net gaming revenues or player losses). Unheard of.
As it turned out Wynn’s Mirage did better than even he expected and debts due over the next 7 years were paid off in only 18 months. All of a sudden the casino corporate strategy goal posts were moved and in was ushered the era of “build it, and they will come”. Project feasibility was no longer constrained by considerations of whether local demand would be sufficient to fill another casino, but rather predicated on a total re-shaping of demand by the new casino. The mega hotel casino arms race had begun.
Integrated casino resorts
They don’t call the big casino developments ‘hotel casinos’ anymore. They are ‘integrated casino resorts’.
The first major entry in the race post-Mirage was the Las Vegas Bellagio. At a cost of $1.6 billion when doors opened in 1998 its price tag had jaws dropping again. But the Bellagio is nothing compared to what followed in the new millennium.
The latest integrated casino resort to open its doors is Singapore’s Resorts World Sentosa. At a cost of just under $5 billion it makes the Mirage and Bellagio look downright cheap. If the Mirage needed $1 million a day to cover its $630 million price tag can you imagine what Genting International (RWS owners) are hoping players will drop at their new casino?
The staggering thing is, early reports suggest RWS is so far an unqualified success. According to Union Gaming Group they have been winning between $7 million and $8 million a day since doors opened in February this year.
The astounding thing is, RWS is neither the biggest nor the most ambitious casino project that has been built in the last five years. Less than 5 kilometers down the road from Sentosa Island at Singapore’s Marina Bay, a casino is due to open in less than a fortnight’s time. This one cost $5.5 billion (and counting) to build. The Marina Bay Sands is the current benchmark for big budget casino resorts. But it is only a matter of time before it too is trumped.
Below is the complete top 5 list, in order of most to least expensive in nominal (not inflation adjusted) US dollar terms.
The top 5
1 Marina Bay Sands
Cost: $5.5 billion
Where: Singapore
Opened: April 2010
Stats: 2,500 suites, 1000 gaming tables and 1400 slot machines, SkyPark large enough to park four A380 jumbo jets
What they said:
“Nearly four years ago, we embarked on a journey we believed would define the future of our company and at the same time change the face of tourism in Singapore and the South Asian region for decades to come,” Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson
Almost a decade on from launch, Marina Bay Sands is still the benchmark
2 Resort World Sentosa
Cost: $4.93 billion
Where: Singapore
Opened: February 14 2010
Stats: 121 acres, 161,500 square foot casino floor, 6 hotels with 1,800 suites
What they said:
“It will change the face of tourism in the region. Resorts World at Sentosa will attract 15 million visitors,” Genting chairman Lim Kok Thay
Hard to know where Resorts World Sentosa begins and ends
3 The Cosmopolitan
Cost: $3.9 billion
Where: Las Vegas, USA
Opened: December 2010, The Boulevard Penthouses launched 2017
Stats: 3,027 suites, 110,000 square feet of gaming floor, 3 different owners before turning 4 years old (3700 Associates then Deutsche Bank, then Blackstone Group).
What they said:
“It’s a judgment-free zone. People can come and behave in an extreme manner, and we’re not telling them not to.” Head of marketing Leslie Sadovia on the Cosmopolitan’s anything goes approach super high rollers.
Not without its issues getting built, the Cosmopolitan promises guests ‘just the right amount of wrong’
4 Wynn Las Vegas
Cost: $2.7 billion
Where: Las Vegas
Opened: April 29 2005
Stats: 2,359 suites at an average cost of $1 million per suite (c/f Bellagio at $533,000 per suite), 1,960 slot machines and 137 table games on a 111,000 square foot casino floor
What they said:
“There is nobody in the world who creates such entertaining and beautiful casinos…I would say every other casino must be nervous. He’s lifted the bar dramatically,” Richard Branson
“This would be hard to top,” Las Vegan Marlene DeMarco
The Wynn Las Vegas held the ‘most expensive’ title for a few years
5 Venetian Macau
Cost: $2.4 billion
Where: Cotai Strip Macau
Opened: August 2007
Stats: 550,000 square feet gaming floor (still the largest in the world), 3400 slot machines and 800 gambling tables, 3000 suites
What they said:
“We are going to create a mini Las Vegas out of the Cotai Strip,” Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson
Take a gondola ride inside the Venetian Macau
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