Only foreigners, Viet Kieu can play
The government of Vietnam has announced it will not lift the ban that keeps Vietnamese nationals from playing at the country’s casinos.
According to VietnamNetBridge, the Minister of Finance has declared that casinos in Vietnam will remain open only to foreigners and Viet Kieu, Vietnamese who live overseas.
The ban has been the subject of debate for years. In 2014, Nguyen Van Hien, then chairman of the National Assembly’s Legal Committee, argued that locals should play locally, and if Vietnamese are prohibited from gambling at home, they will still go to casinos in Hong Kong, Cambodia and Singapore. Uong Chu Luu and Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, then deputy chairmen of the National Assembly also proposed opening casinos to Vietnamese.
According to Nguyen Dinh Chuc, deputy head of the Research Institute for Sustainable Development, Vietnamese spend about $250 million every year at casinos in Cambodia alone. Ha Ton Vinh, the author of a book about Vietnam’s casino industry in Vietnam, puts the figure at a staggering $800 million.
The development is “clearly bad news for international IR (integrated resort) developers,” said a note from Union Gaming Securities Asia Ltd. Investors had “viewed Vietnam as one of the prized global greenfield opportunities,” analyst Grant Govertsen said. But the brokerage holds out the possibility that things may change.
“The Ministry of Finance stated that they are still studying the ramifications of allowing Vietnamese citizens to gamble, which, in our opinion, leaves the door open slightly,” according to Union Gaming. “We are taking news of a continued ban with a grain of salt, as not only is the draft decree up for further revisions, but that it could represent a trial balloon in order to get further input from the local community (or perhaps extract more concessions from developers).”
The ongoing ban in Vietnam is good news elsewhere, such as Cambodia, where NagaWorld in Phnom Penh continues to draw Vietnamese customers. Citigroup analysts Anil Daswani, George Choi and Aras Poon said, “In our view, if the Vietnamese government maintains the status quo on its gaming laws and regulations, it could be a major overhang removed for NagaWorld. Players from Vietnam represent around 10 percent to 20 percent of NagaWorld’s mass players, on our estimates, and we believe NagaWorld will continue to see Vietnamese players crossing borders and gaming in Cambodia.”
