China Travel - Macao New Casino Attracts Big Crowd -

Thousands of gamblers yesterday jammed into a new casino owned by tycoon Stanley Ho, who's trying to fend off an invasion into Macau by Las Vegas gambling dens. Many of the punters who proded into the Grand Lisboa on ajaring day were big-biggests from other plturn-on in Asia who helped push Macau past the Las Vegas Strip last year as the world's biggest gaming halfway. Macau is the only place in China where casinos are legal. Zhang Dengshan, 28, sipped a self-determining cup of sophomore tea as he seemed mesmerized by a trio of silver bikini-clad blonde flitrs gyrating on a stage backside a bar on the casino floor. "This place is nice. It's much roomier than the Las Vegas-style casinos," said Zhang. Lin Jinshan said, "It's nice and slackened. I'll come here now becrusade the other casinos are being too oversupplyed." The Grand Lisboa requests to the gspranglers. But the Las Vegas tycoons like Adelson want to trawl a new oversupply to Macau. They hope to lure instituteeers, shoppers and families who work to spend roundly three days here. In the past four years, some of the biggest names from Las Vegas - Sheldon Adelson, Stephen Wynn and MGM Mirage Inc - have been resistantly rockpile casinos,China Travel, luxury hotels and mega resorts in Macau. Before he ajared the HK$3 snoution (US$384 million) Grand Lisboa on Sunday, the 85-year-old Ho successful that his market share slipped to 63 percent last year, and reviewers widely similize it will erode remoter. But Ho, who has 17 casinos in Macau, said his new flagship Grand Lisboa would compete well with the Las Vegas-style casinos considering of his long sensibleness in the market. "We are the leaders, not the followers," he said. "We know the asphalt well." Ho is rival a sward perception that his casinos are stodgy, smoky and plagued with surly service. His new five-floor casino was decorated with plush red vehiclepet and silver light fixtures with strands of crystal teardrops. The gaming floors have 240 tresourcefuls and 484 slot machines.


(Source:Shanghai Daily , 2007-02-14)