“The more tables, the better”
Macau casino concessionaire SJM Holdings, the last of the city’s Big 6 to open a resort on the Cotai Strip, has seen yearly declines in gross gaming revenue for the past six years. That downward trend should start to reverse in the second half of 2019 when the company opens its new Grand Lisboa Palace, the last casino resort currently planned for the Cotai district.
SJM’s rank among its competitors dropped year by year from a leading 29 percent in 2011 to 16.1 percent in 2017, according to company reports. Analysts say it happened in part because the company’s been late to the game on Cotai.
At SJM’s annual general meeting in Hong Kong on June 12, Chief Executive Ambrose So told reporters he looks forward to getting his allotment of gaming tables at Grand Lisboa, in keeping with the “120 to 150” granted to the company’s rivals. The new IR has room for 400 tables, reported GGRAsia, but a 3 percent on new-to-market tables has constrained the inventory citywide and compelled some operators to reallocate tables from their peninsula properties.
“The more new gaming tables, the better,” said So.
On completion, the Grand Lisboa Palace will include three hotel towers, two to be branded for designers Gianni Versace and Karl Lagerfeld. In aggregate the hotels will provide approximately 2,000 rooms, SJM Holdings noted in its annual report for 2017 filed in April.
Meanwhile, SJM is cashing in on the e-Sports trend at its downtown property, the Grand Lisboa Hotel. So has called e-Sports “an emerging industry with huge growth potential and global viewership.”
Macau casino operators Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd and Melco Resorts and Entertainment Ltd also ran e-Sports events last year.
