By Kate O’Keeffe
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
SINGAPORE (Dow Jones)–Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS) Chairman Sheldon Adelson said Tuesday the Macau government’s statement that it will cap gambling tables in Chinese territory is to be taken seriously.
Adelson’s comment on the sidelines of the opening of the company’s latest casino, the US$5.5 billion Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, comes after Steve Wynn, chairman of Wynn Resorts Ltd. (WYNN), last week dismissed worries that Macau government officials could limit the number of gambling tables.
Wynn called recent remarks by top officials part of “a conversation, not a reality.”
Adelson said: “The Macau government made it clear to us that the cap is real.”
Macau’s top gambling official, Francis Tam, said last month that the total number of gambling tables in the Chinese territory will be capped at 5,500, from 5,000 now, until 2013 and that the Macau government won’t approve new casino projects until then to promote the healthy and orderly development of the casino market as gambling revenue continues to soar.
Wynn, speaking in an interview ahead of the opening of his new hotel and casino, Encore at Wynn Macau, said construction of the company’s largest Macau project would start next year, in time to open as early as the end of 2013.
Adelson said that despite the table cap, an expansion project by Las Vegas Sands unit Sands China Ltd. (1928.HK) in Macau’s Cotai area will have 670 gambling tables at the opening. He also said the Macau government wouldn’t approve projects and then deny the company the tables and labor necessary to complete them.
The Macau government said last week that it hadn’t authorized Sands China to hire foreign workers to finish construction of the project, however, suggesting the casino and hotel development could face further delays.
Sands China Chief Executive Steve Jacobs said last week the Cotai project would open on schedule in the third quarter of 2011.
-By Jonathan Cheng, The Wall Street Journal, and Kate O’Keeffe, Dow Jones Newswires; 852-2802-7002; kathryn.okeeffe@dowjones.com
