Locals playing at Singapore casinos

Singapore officials have never made any secret of the fact that their two new mega-casinos were built primarily for tourists.  Resorts World Sentosa and the Marina Bay Sands are the cornerstone of government plans to double visitors to Singapore by 2015.

Locals wanting to play at the casinos are required to pay S$100 per visit or an annual levy of S$2,000 if they want to play at either casino – charges tourist are not subject to.

However early signs suggest that things aren’t necessarily going to plan with the majority of casino patrons thus far coming from within Singapore. According to a recent BoA/Merrill Lynch analyst’s report, 50-60% of players at both casinos are Singaporean, with 90% of these guests opting to pay the single visit fee rather than the annual levy.

It also seems that patrons from outside Singapore are largely visiting from countries in the immediate region – Malaysia particularly.  The 1 hour bus trip to Marina Bay or Resorts World from the populous city of Johor is proving far more attractive to than 4 hours to Malaysia’s only terrestrial casino in the Genting Highlands.  Apparently tourist companies in Johor are doing a roaring trade.

The casinos have yet to capture the hearts and minds of the Chinese junket gamblers who frequent Macau but the junket market was never intended to be a target market (for Marina Bay Sands at least).  Back in January this year Sand’s COO Michael Leven said,

“We are building our organization on the anticipation that we do no junket business. The gaming intentions of the people who live within an hour-and-a-half’s flight of Singapore are very significant.”