Las Vegas Sands wants to build casino in Vietnam

Sheldon G. Adelson and his wife at the inaugural ceremony of Marina Bay Sands, an integrated resort including a luxury casino in Singapore, last year Photo: Thanh Nien

The American billionaire revealed his interest in opening a casino in Vietnam during an interview with Thanh Nien in Singapore last week.

Some international media sources also said Adelson, after his big successes in the casino business in Singapore, is considering launching a casino in Vietnam, where the only one casino in the country – Do Son Casino in the northern Hai Phong City, is accessible to foreigners only.

When asked whether he had met with the Vietnamese government to proceed with the plan, he said, “About a year and a half ago, during a real estate survey, some representatives of Vietnam’s Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Industry and Trade asked me if I had any plan to open a casino in Vietnam. I told them that I really wanted to.”

However, Adelson said, “The problem is that Vietnam does not allow its citizens to access the casino. We have been told that if we set up a casino in Vietnam, the customer base for our casino is limited to the foreigners in Vietnam only.”

“I will never invest $5-10 billion in setting up a casino in a place where local people are not given access to that casino,” he emphasised.

He said that casinos can provide a needed stimulus boost to other fields in a country. “Nobody wants to visit a country only because it has casinos or allows horse race betting, but because that country has other attractions, such as resorts like those in Singapore.”

Last year, Singapore welcomed 11.6 million foreign visitors, a historical record to date, and the number is expected to rise to 17 million in 2015, he said.

Last year saw the consumer spending by foreigners in Singapore increased by 49 per cent from 2009, he added.

In reply to the question, “If you decide to invest in Vietnam, which location will you choose to set up a casino?” Adelson answered, “It will be Ho Chi Minh City, as it has a better infrastructure.”

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