Tristan Sjöberg, TCSJOHNHUXLEY’s managing director for Asia, shares his views on the region’s next big gaming destination
Casino equipment supplier TCSJOHNHUXLEY opened its Singapore office last year ahead of the opening of the city-state’s first casinos. Las Vegas Sands Corp is scheduled to open the Marina Bay Sands integrated resort (IR) in December this year, followed by Genting Group’s Resorts World at Sentosa in the first quarter of 2010. Inside Asian Gaming spoke to Tristan Sjöberg, TCSJOHNHUXLEY’s managing director for Asia, about the prospects for Singapore’s IRs.
IAG: Why did you choose Singapore as your Southeast Asian base [outside of Macau]?
Mr Sjöberg: It’s a very good business environment to be in. The infrastructure is good and they welcome foreign direct investment. Initially it was set up to service the Southeast Asian market of Malaysia, Singapore and also the Thai satellite countries, such as Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar.
What about the labour situation in Singapore? Obviously in Macau it’s difficult to find technical staff?
That’s the good thing about Singapore. There’s a large talent pool here and it’s relatively easy to employ technical staff, or sales staff. The staffing issue so far has been much easier than we have experienced in Macau.
The consensus seems to be that Singapore will never measure up to Macau in terms of gambling revenue. How do you see Singapore shaping up once the two integrated resorts are open for business?
I appreciate that view, but I think it might not be very fair to Singapore. I’ll tell you why. Of course Singapore will never measure up in terms of total gaming revenue as Macau, where there are 31 casinos and growing—on June 1st City of Dreams will open, and there’s going to be more casinos in the future. Singapore will only have two casinos [with no further licenses to be granted for 20 years], so it will not be able to measure up, for sure, with Macau. But it’s not trying to. The Singapore government sees the casino resorts as an integral part of getting tourists to the city, because Singapore has been always the bridesmaid, never the bride. It’s the perennial stopover city to Australia or to go to a beach resort, or just as a business location. You go there for business, then you move on somewhere else.
The Singapore government is now trying to change that, and trying to make it a destination in its own right, and casinos are an integral part of that. They call them IRs—integrated resorts. Having one which focuses on the business clientele in Marina Bay and one that focuses on the more family-oriented resort crowd on Sentosa. I think that’s a very good plan, and I applaud the Singapore government for taking that stance.
Will it take any customers away from Macau?
I think it will actually. I qualify that by saying we’re still waiting to hear what exactly the Singapore government will require in terms of keeping track of the players. You might get high rollers from mainland China, the VIP customers. They might prefer to go to Singapore to gamble as opposed to Macau.
Because if they go to Macau, it’s more obvious what they’re going for?
Yes, it is. It’s obvious what they’re going for. The shopping in Macau is also not as good as in Singapore. If they [mainland Chinese high rollers] bring their wives, the wives might want to do more shopping. It’s easier for a mainland Chinese to get a12 month multiple entry visa to Singapore. All you basically need to do is show that you’re employed, and you have money for a return ticket. So for mainland Chinese VIP players, it will be very easy to nip over to Singapore.
Yes, the flight time [to Singapore] is longer, but if you’re going to fly five hours or three hours, it’s not going to make much of a difference. There are six direct flights a day between Beijing and Singapore. And I think there are 12 between Hong Kong and Singapore. There are a lot of flights between mainland China and Singapore.
I don’t think the mass market is going to change their behaviour—they’re all going to continue going to Macau, but I think the VIP segment is going to seriously look at Singapore as a resort destination.
Macau still draws players predominately from neighbouring Guangdong province in mainland China. Do you think Singapore will be draw players more from other parts of China?
Yes, I think so. The fact that they use Mandarin, simplified Chinese, is a great draw as well. Guangdong people coming to Macau will find it very easy, because it’s the same language [Cantonese], whereas if you come from Chengdu, or Beijing or northern China, where they actually speak Mandarin as their first language, Singapore will offer a much easier cultural adjustment.
I do believe some of the VIP market in Macau will suffer. Whether it will suffer enough to have a significant impact, I don’t know.
Will squeaky-clean Singapore issue licenses to the junkets that traditionally bring VIP players to the casinos?
This is the million dollar question, and everyone is waiting for the Singapore Casino Regulatory Authority to announce how they’re actually going to license it. Nobody really knows. They’ve come out with one document regarding electronic gaming equipment standards, and there are some questions regarding the interpretation of that content.
They’re saying local residents will have to pay S$100 for 24-hour access to the gaming floor. That’s what they’ve said, but they haven’t actually come out with a definitive statute saying this is exactly what’s going to happen. And the same goes for the junkets. Are they [the junkets] going to be licensed? How is that going to affect the VIPs? Will the junkets have to provide a client list? And money reporting, and all these things.
Knowing Singapore, I think they probably will require the junkets to be licensed. But there are also very strict confidentiality laws here. So it will be interesting to keep an eye out on the amount of exchange between the Singapore government and the PRC [People’s Republic of China] government.
Do you assume the Singapore government would keep information about VIP players more private than the Macau government, which could be pressured more to share the information with the Chinese government?
Correct. That’s a gut feeling, but yes, that’s what I’m saying. The risk of exchange of information between Macau and Beijing is far greater than the risk between Singapore and Beijing.
Apart from attracting some VIP players away from Macau, where will the bulk of players at Singapore’s integrated resorts come from?
Apart from the local clientele—and let’s not forget that even though Singapore only has 4.5 million residents, it has a very high standard of living and most of them are likely to gamble, they like a little flutter—apart from that local market, I think Malaysia and Indonesia are certainly going to be two of the top markets.
Obviously, casinos are banned in Indonesia, and Singapore with direct ferries and direct flights will offer a perfect venue for Indonesians wanting to gamble. With Malaysia as well, people who want a different experience from Genting Resorts World up the mountain might choose Genting Sentosa instead. Rather than going up a mountain to a tropical rainforest, they might go down to the beach.
And let’s not forget the Indian market either.
Many predict there will be a lot of demand from Indian players, but how realistic is it that large numbers of Indians will come to Singapore to gamble?
I think it’s very realistic. I speak to a lot of Indians, and they’re looking forward to the IRs here. I have a good from Delhi, who’s asking me ‘oh, when will the IRs open?’ I think the awareness of the IRs in India is actually quite high.
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And obviously the flight connections between India and Singapore are quite good. The problem for Indians coming to Macau is how do they get there, and once they get there, there’s not much to do beyond the casinos.
The flight connections between India and Singapore are amazing. Obviously, after the Chinese, the Indians are the largest group here. So I think the catchment area for Singapore is going to be large. And let’s face it, the casino offerings in India are quite limited.
Roulette is the most popular game at Genting in Malaysia, whereas Macau is dominated by baccarat. What do you see playing out in Singapore?
I think it will be a mixture of the Genting Malaysia style and the Macau style. I don’t think it will go to either extreme. I think the Singapore casinos will have much more roulette than the Macau casinos for sure, but more baccarat than in Malaysia.
Why is roulette so much bigger in Malaysia?
I think it has to do with training of customers really. It’s historical reasons. Genting has been there for such a long time, and when it was opened, it was modelled on the western style casinos, so they put a lot of roulette in there, and people adapted to it. And also, Malaysian culture is slightly different from Chinese culture, so you have a different mentality as well among the Malaysian population.
But Singaporean culture is more Chinese culture, isn’t it?
Yes, but it’s Peranakan Chinese. Peranakan Chinese are sort of the Malay Straits Chinese, and they’ve had a lot of Western influence over the last 150 years, so they’ve had a lot more international influences and the culture has evolved into its own subset. You can see that with the buildings in Singapore and Malaysia. It’s taken a lot of European influences, and taken some Malays influences. So the Chinese sub-culture here is a different Chinese than the mainland Chinese, or the one that evolved in Macau. Hence we think it’s going to be a lot more roulette.
So I guess that bodes well for some of your electronic roulette products?
Our new showroom is being constructed now and once we’ve got the MultiPLAY table here, in Singapore, we’re going to invite the two casinos to have a detailed demonstration. It is important our customers have a look at it, to feel it, play it, touch it.
The worldwide roll out of MultPLAY has been very successful. We’ve just installed a table at Gold Reef Casino in South Africa. It’s on trial and doing really well. This has been the case pretty much everywhere it’s gone. So we think that Singapore will be a perfect market for this product, because the market here is very sophisticated in terms of electronic gadgets, and they like technology and efficiency.
Do you see Macau moving away from its current baccarat dominance towards other games?
Not in the immediate future. I think slot machines will slowly start to grow in popularity. I can’t see the table games mix changing in the immediate future. Maybe over the five to ten year period, it might change into a little more blackjack.
