South Korean casino operator Paradise has hired Jose Mourinho, the manager of English football giant Chelsea, as the face of its new advertising campaign, replacing Hollywood movie star Robert DeNiro.
Paradise is teaming up with Japan’s Sega Sammy Holdings to build a US$1.7 billion resort casino near the coastal city of Incheon and the country’s main international airport and is looking to cash in on the popularity of Premier League football with Chinese gamblers.
The number of Chinese tourists to South Korea surged 52.5 percent to 4.3 million last year, according to the Korea Tourism Organization, and Paradise expects its resort, which is slated for completion in 2017, to attract 160,000 visitors a day, two-thirds of them Chinese.
At the same time, it will be facing competition from Genting Singapore, which is building a gaming resort on Jeju Island in the south of the country, and Caesars Entertainment, which has preliminary approval to develop a megaresort of its own in Incheon.
“The growing interest in football in China, and the fact that a significant number of casino customers are Chinese, was the main reason behind naming Mourinho as the model,” Paradise said in a statement.
Paradise is the largest operator of South Korea’s 16 foreigners-only casinos. There is also one casino in the far northeast of the country that is open to domestic players. Gaming revenues from all 17 totaled US$2.7 billion last year, according to research house CIMB.
