Gambling News by Gambling Headquarters

Macau may have dethroned the Las Vegas Strip as the world's biggest casino center, according to figures available Wednesday that show the Chinese territory's gambling revenue jumped 22 percent to $6.95 billion last year. The former Portuguese enclave has been booming since the government busted up a casino monopoly three years ago and began welcoming U.S. gaming powerhouses like Las Vegas Sands, MGM Mirage and Wynn Resorts. The U.S. companies have been furiously building mega casino and resort projects in the tiny city - less than one-sixth the size of Washington, D.C. - on China's southeastern coast. Key to Macau's success will be luring the masses of high rollers from mainland China, who are growing richer and tend to bet more at the casino tables than Americans do in Las Vegas. About 3 billion people - half the world's population - in Asia can get to the city within five hours by plane, the Sands company says. The Las Vegas Strip has yet to announce its full-year revenue figures for 2006, but it would have to bring in nearly $1 billion in December alone to beat Macau's figure, which was posted with no fanfare on the Web site of its Gaming and Inspection Coordination Bureau. The Las Vegas Strip has said for the 11 months through November, revenue came to $6.08 billion. If December's revenue is the same as it was the previous year, the annual total would hit about $6.57 billion - just behind Macau. Last year, Macau's gambling revenue totaled 55.88 billion patacas, or $6.95 billion, compared to 45.80 billion patacas in 2005, the gaming bureau's Web site said. The figure includes revenue from casinos, lotteries and dog and horse racing. Still, Macau lags far behind the entire state of Nevada, which raked in $10.66 billion in 2005, according to the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.