.5 billion-plus in monthly wagers
Best Sunshine Live, a temporary casino on the island of Saipan, may have hit some speed bumps in its first year of operations, including a threatened increase in the gaming tax and a government order to fire some of its foreign staff. But overall, things couldn’t be better at the property in Garapan, which is pulling in some $1.5 billion in wagers per month, according to a report in Marianas Variety.
Best Sunshine CEO Mark Brown, who formerly ran the Macau operations of the Las Vegas Sands Corp., told the Nikkei Asian Review the fledgling property is flourishing thanks to high rollers who used to patronize casinos in Macau, but shied away when the government came down hard on alleged corruption, graft and money laundering. Best Sunshine is linked through its controlling shareholder to Macau junket agency Heng Sheng Group.
“We are dealing with the ‘VVIP’ guys that we personally know,” Brown crowed. “They’re coming and they’re loving it. There’s a lot of repeat business. The views alone are incredible, plus the boat rides, the dinners on the beach.”
Best Sunshine is a unit of Hong Kong-listed Imperial Pacific International Holdings. It is investing $550 million in its permanent casino, the Grand Mariana, which is set to open in late January 2017, followed by a 367-room hotel tower in April. That’s just the start of what could be a vast entertainment complex with multiple hotels, Variety reported.
The coming resort should expect some competition, especially those who want to reap similar results. Investors are working to reopen a shuttered casino hotel on the neighboring island of Tinian. And South Korean and Japanese investors are also looking into developing casinos on Rota, another island in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. All the islands in the chain are part of a U.S. territory.
Brown says the VVIPs are enthusiastic about gambling in a U.S.-regulated jurisdiction. “No one can play in our VIP rooms unless we know who they are,” he said. “The game is real. The players like the fact that we’re highly regulated. They like the fact that it’s the U.S. It’s safe outside, it’s safe inside, it’s safe everywhere.”
Imperial Pacific said Best Sunshine Live generated $1.66 billion in VIP table roll in June alone. The property peaked in April, generating $3.19 billion in VIP volume.
Before it opens the Grand Mariana, Best Sunshine will have to resolve its labor issues. It recently had to fire 200 staff members because it exceeded a cap on foreign workers. The company may also have to face a 10 percent hike in the gaming tax, though some officials are trying to put the brakes on the proposal.
Commonwealth Casino Commission Executive Director Edward Deleon Guerrero told lawmakers it’s better to give the casino “a year after the Grand Mariana is completed.”
