Da Nang casino closed

 Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung told Da Nang authorities to temporarily close the casino ran by Silvershore Hoang Dat JV Company to address the firm’s violations.

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Illustration photo from Wayfaring.

The casino can only reopen once Silvershore Hoang Dat meets the conditions requested by the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MoPI).

Da Nang authorities were told to review management of Silvershore Hoang Dat and to closely work with relevant agencies to instruct and supervise this company to deal with violations previously defined by the MoPI.

The Ministries of Finance, Public Security, Labour-War Invalid-Social Affairs, Culture-Sports-Tourism and Foreign Affairs will cooperate with Da Nang to consider and solve the issues related to this casino and hotel.

The Silver Shores International Tourist Site was inaugurated on January 26, 2010 in Da Nang, consisting of a five-star hotel and Vietnam’s largest casino. This was also the largest foreign-invested project in Da Nang in 2006, at $86 million.

Previously, the MoPI asked Da Nang to inspect and supervise the Silver Shores project. According to MoPI, the firm’s license allowed it to have 8 card tables, but it had over 10. The investor also employed a large number of unskilled foreign workers, while Vietnamese law only permits use of foreign experts when the domestic labor market can’t provide workers.

PV

Da Nang opens Casino Vietnam

The Silver Shores JV Company has opened its international tourism centre, including a casino for foreign visitors, in Da Nang’s Ngu Hanh Son District on January 26.

This centre consists of a five-star hotel and an entertainment area, including the biggest international casino in Vietnam. It also has 52 villas and a 1,000-seat national conference building.

The entertainment area covers 15,000 square meters, capable of providing baccarat, blackjack, Sic bo, Roulette, Caribbean Stud Poker and other games for hundreds of foreigner visitors at the same time.

Photo: Tuoi Tre

The whole project is estimated to worth a total of $160 million.

Cambodian Casino Bankrupts Mekong Delta residents

Cambodian casino bankrupts Mekong Delta residents

The entrance to the Grand Dragon Resort in Cambodia.
Kiem, a Mekong Delta water-lily dealer, just lost all her money at the Grand Dragon Resort casino across the border in Cambodia.

She earns a living buying the plants at the border to resell in An Giang Province and the city of Can Tho. She was waiting to collect her goods at the border when some friends convinced her to visit the casino “just to try it.”

“But I left the casino without any money to continue my business,” she says. “It was terrible.”

The refrain is not uncommon among Vietnamese visitors to the casino just across the river from An Giang’s An Phu District.

Just ask any of the hotel owners or xe om (motorbike taxi) drivers near the Long Binh Border Gate, which leads to Cambodia’s Kandal Province.

A hotel owner in An Phu District says most gamblers come from Ho Chi Minh City and Can Tho. She says they all leave bitterly after losing.

Gamblers crowd the roulette tables at a casino in the Grand Dragon Resort in Cambodia

She says she’s used to rich guests driving up in luxury cars only to leave with their heads down and less luggage.

“A woman from a nearby commune committed suicide recently after her husband piled up billions of dong in gambling debts,” she says.

Gamblers with passports can cross the border legally after a few simple procedures at the border gate, while it is also easy to cross the river-border illegally in small boats for just VND3,000 (US$0.17).

The casino at the Grand Dragon Resort is just a few meters from the riverbank while a number of xe om drivers are always ready to take gamblers to a cock-fighting ring two kilometers away.

Nguyen Van Son, a Vietnamese xe om driver operating near the casino, says his customers are always excited when the day begins, and universally disappointed when they return home.

He says five of his colleagues have lost their motorbikes – and thereby their livelihood – to gambling at the casino.

He points to a hawker peddling Vietnamese pancakes on the street. She used to be a rich woman before she lost it all to the casino, he says.

From losing to losing

Many Vietnamese inside and outside the casino appear to be doing nothing but hanging around after losing all their money.

Lap, a fish dealer from Vietnam, is reluctant to leave. She says she wants to watch other people play after losing more than VND1 million ($56.20) earlier in the day.

She says she knows the right time to stop and usually wins several million dong on visits to the casino.

So, what’s she doing now with no money?

She admits that she’s become addicted and that she lost more than she won on this particular day.

Outside the casino, pawnbrokers lay in wait, always willing to grant loans to gamblers who want to bet their luck on their belongings after losing all their money.

Vietnamese law prohibits Vietnamese citizens from gambling but allows hotels rated four-stars and above to operate casinos for people holding foreign passports.

Reported by Tien Trinh

Vietnam casino developer eyes $1 bln HK IPO -paper

HONG KONG, Oct 6 (Reuters) - A Canadian firm developing an ocean-front casino complex in Vietnam hopes to raise $1 billion in a Hong Kong IPO in the next two years, a local newspaper reported, despite signs of weakening Asian gambling revenue.
Asian Coast Development and investor Harbinger Capital began work on their $4.2 billion Ho Tram Strip project in May, hoping to open in two years and target mainly Chinese gamblers. [ID:nHAN219691]
The South China Morning Post cited chairman Mike Aymong as saying on Monday he would prefer a Hong Kong share offering because of strong investor appetite there for gambling firms.
Aymong was also quoted as saying the firm had prepared an $800 million to $900 million debt offering, but planned to ride out the global financial storm before taking it to market.
"You'd have to be a fool not to be concerned about the marketplace, so we just have to pick our timing and pick our price," the newspaper cited Aymong as saying.
"We've got enough money where we can start the pre-construction and start building, and when the market opens back up, we'll go out and do the debt offering."
Analysts point out that explosive growth in Asian gambling -- fuelled by increasingly wealthy Chinese gamers -- may be decelerating.
Citigroup estimated on Monday that year-on-year gambling revenue in Macau, the region's gambling capital, fell 3 percent in September, the first fall since January 2006.
The bank cited restrictions on visas granted to residents of the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, a major source of gamers for the former Portugese enclave, the only city in China that permits gambling.
Investor demand for gambling-focused firms has also waned in past months. In July, the much-anticipated debut of tycoon Stanley Ho's gaming flagship, SJM Holdings (0880.HK: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), disappointed investors when its shares dipped 1.3 percent below its offering price on its first day. [ID:nHKG186258] (Reporting by Edwin Chan; Editing by Ken Wills)

Vietnam Makes Bet on Gambling

Communist Vietnam is set to become the latest country in Asia to embrace Las Vegas-style casinos, with a Canadian property developer planning to break ground Saturday on the first phase of a $4.5 billion casino-resort project on the nation's southern coast.
The project, called Ho Tram, will be the biggest foreign investment to date in Vietnam, said Michael Aymong, chairman of Toronto-based Asian Coast Development Ltd., the project's lead investor, with a 30% stake. Its main partner in the project is New York hedge fund Harbinger Capital LLC, which has a 25% share.
The initial phase will cost $1.3 billion and consist of two five-star hotels with a combined 2,300 rooms and a casino with approximately 90 gambling tables, 500 slot machines and an area for VIP customers. When completed in 2015, the resort will comprise five hotels with 9,000 rooms and a second casino, Mr. Aymong said.
Ho Tram also will target vacationing families, with features including an 18-hole golf course designed by Greg Norman, a Cirque du Soleil theater, and a site for guests to swim with dolphins.
"It's a needed project in Vietnam" that, in spite of the country's poor infrastructure, will be able to "effectively compete" with integrated resorts in neighboring China, Malaysia and Singapore, Mr. Aymong said.
Vietnam's ruling Communist Party has historically been suspicious of U.S.-style casinos, and many Vietnamese consider gambling a social evil on par with drug abuse. Although a few small, tightly controlled casinos have operated in the country for several years, Ho Tram will be several times larger and represent a big, symbolic step for Vietnam into the capitalist mainstream.
Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said his government "will create favorable conditions" for Canadian investors, but Ho Tram's casinos will be off-limits to Vietnamese, as are the country's existing casinos.
The casino business is booming in Asia, led by China's glitzy enclave of Macau, the world's No. 1 gambling center in terms of revenue. Singapore is building its own casino-resort complex, and industry players expect Japan and Thailand will soon allow investment in similar projects. Like its neighbors, Vietnam hopes that a luxurious megaresort offering high-stakes gambling will boost tourism and create jobs.
Mr. Aymong said he expects Ho Tram to attract at least two-thirds of its customers from China, together with large numbers from South Korea, Japan and Russia.
Ho Tram will occupy more than 500 acres on a 1.9-mile stretch of beach in Xuyen Moc Commune in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, a 90-minute drive southeast of Ho Chi Minh City.
Asian Coast Development has letters of intent from "a couple of international hotel chains" that want to manage the hotels at Ho Tram, Mr. Aymong said, though he declined to name them. The company also is talking with about 10 casino operators that have expressed interest in running the resort's gambling operations, he said, again declining to identify any of these possible partners.
Asian Coast Development is a merchant bank and developer.
Write to Bruce Stanley at bruce.stanley@wsj.com
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