Sunday, May 29, 2011

Macau photos

I'm on my way to BGI for another visit. It was cheaper to fly to Macau and take the jetfoil to Shenzhen than to fly direct from Taipei so I decided to stop over (it's my first time in Macau). Macau surpassed Las Vegas in gambling revenues a few years ago, and now having seen the crowds of Chinese gamblers here I would say there is no looking back. The most crazy and opulent things I saw while walking around were in the actual casinos, but I wasn't allowed to take any photos.

The story of how Sheldon Adelson used his Clinton, Bush and Israeli contacts to obtain a foothold here (he owns both the Macau Sands and Venetian) is quite interesting ;-)










4 comments:

LondonYoung said...

"The most crazy and opulent things I saw while walking around were in the actual casinos" - I can only imagine what they were ...

steve hsu said...

I was mainly referring to architecture. For example at the grand lisboa the main gaming area is three huge levels with a giant open space in the middle connecting the levels. Hard to describe -- I got in trouble for taking a picture and had to delete the file from my phone. It's understandable that they are very paranoid about people taking pictures of their casino operations, but they wouldn't even let me shoot the architecture.

I know some guys (via my In-Q-Tel connections) who work on casino security technology and it's quite interesting what they can do. There are cameras everywhere in these places...

Al_Li said...

Mr.Wynn now considers his empire a Chinese company now. There are too many bondages doing business in the US. 
The last time I was at the Venetian there three years ago the crowd was so thin that I could hear my own echo. I think China has changed its policy for maninlanders to visit Macau. My iPhone pop up a new text message tow welcome me to Hong kong/Shenzhen/Macau when I arrived at each place.

steve hsu said...

The casinos I visited were very crowded on Sat/Sun. I think the majority of people were mainlanders -- more putonghua than guandonghua.

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