Vegas knocked to third place after rise of Asian gambling meccas
A croupier stands next to a gaming table during the opening of the Marina Bay Sands casino in Singapore on April 27, 2010. Singapore threw open the doors of its second casino Tuesday, giving a fresh boost to the city’s tourism sector and raising its profile as a playground for the world’s high-rollers.
Once again, Las Vegas' relevance slips as Asia's newest casino scene — in Singapore — prepares to out-earn Sin City in gambling revenues.
It seems Vegas, stuck in the recession-plagued U.S., has been toppled by casinos in the wealthy city-state Singapore that opened only one year ago.
Singapore's gambling industry is set to rake in $6.4 billion this year, according to the AP, compared to $6.2 billion projected in Vegas.
And for the record, Chinese gambling destination Macau is top dog, generating an astonishing $23.5 billion last year, AP reports. Thanks to China's newfound wealth, their casinos have grown that figure by more than 40 percent this year already.
From all accounts, anyone turned off by the Disney-fication of Vegas in past decades would not enjoy the shopping mall atmosphere in Macau or Singapore.
The motif in both gambling destinations is far from the hedonistic image Vegas seeks to portray. Let's just say you would be hard-pressed to film the next "Hangover" installment in strictly governed Singapore, unless writers wanted the wolf pack to wake up to a $3,500 wine bar tab and an outstanding warrant for smoking within 100 meters of a bus stop.