Fresh off hosting Cambodia’s first successful stop on the Asian Poker Tour, Sihanoukville’s struggling Queenco Casino says it will keep pushing to secure a place for the southwestern coastal province on the global poker map, and broaden its own appeal in the process.
Confident after seeing 120 players from 40 nations turn out for the weeklong tournament, COO Meni Akunis said the casino will hold more of them in hopes they will help transform Sihanoukville into a “resort-style” gambling hub.
“The decision to host the APT event was firstly to promote Sihanoukville as a future gaming destination,“ he said, adding that an agreement has been reached with APT officials for at least two more tour events in 2015, “and then each year after”.
The APT first came to Cambodia in 2012 with an event at the Last Vegas Sun casino in the Vietnamese border town of Bavet, which was quickly labeled a failure.
Akunis believes Queenco will fare better. “Look at the surroundings. We’re in a beautiful spot,” he said. “The players want more than just a ‘casino town’ to gamble in. They need a place where there are other things to do like sit on the beach, a lively bar scene and lots of restaurants.”
A lot is riding on its success. The casino has been losing money ever since it opened in 2012, reporting more than US$2 million in negative cash flow last year and leading Israel-based parent Queenco Leisure International to profess “substantial doubts” about the property’s future as a “going concern”.
“It’s a process, and yes it is going to take time,” Akunis insists, arguing that the Sihanoukville International Airport’s lack of infrastructure to accommodate international flights has been a major deterrent. “When the airport opens up, it will certainly be a game-changer. But for now, we are forced to create the market for gaming holiday-makers, for example, this tournament.”
Sihanoukville Airport recently welcomed its first ever international flight from South Korea and is seeing an increase in air travelers. But of the 764,000 tourists who visited the province during the first six months of this year, only 24,000 arrived through the airport, according to official data.
Tourism is big business in Cambodia, valued last year at more than $2.5 billion, but not much of it spills over into the country’s foreigners-only casinos, a crowded market consisting of 56 mostly small venues on the Thai and Vietnamese borders and totaling some 7,600 slot machines and 2,568 table games. The government generates only about $22 million in tax revenue from the sector annually.
The industry also continues to struggle for acceptance. Cambodians are prohibited from patronizing it by law.
Ho Vandy, co-chair of the Private and Public Sector Tourism Working Group, is among those who fear that more gaming in Sihanoukville could encroach on the town’s backpacker culture.
“Cambodians by law are not allowed to gamble,” she noted, “and by encouraging Westerners to gamble, of course, it could have a knock-on effect to the local community.”
