Vietnam is the latest Asian nation to consider loosening its attitude to gambling, with the Finance Ministry saying Monday that it plans to legalize sports betting.
The move, inspired in part by Singapore’s success in reinventing itself as a casino hub in recent years, follows discussions about easing restrictions on gambling in other major markets such as Japan, and underscores the speed with which the gambling world’s center of gravity has shifted toward Asia.
Hanoi’s finance ministry said in a statement that legalizing and regulating betting on soccer matches and sports events would help limit the social damage caused by underground gambling syndicates. While Vietnam has only a handful of casinos—which only foreign passport holders can enter—informal gambling on the results of European soccer matches is widespread. Many Vietnamese also regularly cross the border to Cambodia to gamble at casinos there, a practice that Vietnam’s Communist leaders have long viewed with suspicion.
The recent success of the gambling industry in Singapore, though, appears to be changing perceptions. Las Vegas Sands Corp.’s Marina Bay Sands and Genting Group’s Resorts World Sentosa opened there in 2010 after the government bid out licenses to operate in the wealthy city-state, following years of hesitation about the possible social impact of casinos. Since then, the casinos have been a large financial success, drawing large numbers of tourists, without triggering widespread crime or other problems.
Vietnam’s Finance Minister Vuong Dinh Hue visited the island city-state at the weekend to study how sports betting works there. The finance ministry said Mr. Hue met with executives from the Tote Board and Singapore Pools, government-run operators of sports betting in Singapore, and also visited a horse-racing track. Singapore’s success in creating family-oriented resorts has also piqued the interest of investors and governments hoping to replicate that model in other parts of Southeast Asia.
It is unclear whether this apparently more tolerant approach to sports betting signals a broader shift among the country’s top leadership in Vietnam to open its market to more casinos and other forms of gambling. It is also unclear if private companies, including foreign investors, would be allowed into the sports betting market, or if the business would be dominated by the Vietnamese government. Government officials couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
U.S. casino operators, though, view Asia as an important new growth market at a time when their American operations are still lagging from the effects of the 2008 financial crisis. PricewaterhouseCoopers expects Asian markets to contribute 43% of the global casino market by 2015, up from 29% in 2010.
Vietnam could be one of several new gambling hubs thanks to its large population of around 90 million people and its growing appeal among foreign tourists. Las Vegas Sands Corp. chief executive Sheldon Adelson has said he is trying to encourage Vietnamese authorities to allow the company to build integrated casino and convention resorts in the country.
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