A bad run for Macau’s casino king
Stanley Ho made his fortune from Macau’s lucrative casino trade but the billionaire has struggled to adapt to the tiny territory’s changing fortunes.
Mr Ho’s firm, Sociedade de Jogos de Macau (SJM), which had a monopoly on gambling for four decades until 2002, has lost out to slicker, foreign rivals who are attempting to transform Macau into Asia’s Las Vegas.
SJM’s share of gambling revenue in the former Portuguese territory, which surpassed the Las Vegas strip in 2006, declined to 40% in 2007 from 75% in 2005, a year after the first foreign company set up shop.
Seedy past
Mr Ho’s famous old casino, the Lisboa, which is closely associated with Macau’s seedy past of gangster gunfights, has proved less popular with punters than the glitzy casinos operated by US firms Las Vegas Sands, MGM Mirage and Wynn Resorts.
However, Mr Ho is fighting back. His firm plans to use the $494m (£247m) it raised from a stock exchange listing in neighbouring Hong Kong this month to give the Lisboa a long-awaited facelift and re-develop several other casinos in the territory.
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