Amid debuts of multi-billion dollar casino resorts in Singapore and a race to build more of the same along the Cotai Strip in Macau, the market leader in the former Portuguese enclave still comes up a winner. Sociedad de Jogos de Macau (SJM), the company founded by Stanley Ho, lost its monopoly eight years ago, yet is making more money now with a smaller slice of the pie.
At the age of 88, and despite continued treatment at home after being hospitalized from last July to this March, SJM managing director Ho appears still to know Macau gambling better than anyone, if the evidence of his newest casino, Oceanus, is anything to go by. The casino fits a strategic plan and incorporates lessons learned since rival casinos arrived on the scene in 2004.
Oceanus, opened in December on the former site of the New Yaohan Department Store, was built in 15 months at the modest cost of HK$1.5 billion (US$194 million). The 345,000 square foot (32,100 square meter) casino with 276 gaming tables and 605 slot machines targets the mass market, where SJM holds a commanding 43% market share; its 30% overall share also leads rivals. Renowned designer Paul Steelman's interior color scheme is inspired by ocean coral. Vivid blues, greens, purples and pinks create the illusion of bubbles in the sea along a rectangular EFTE exterior.
Success cubed
If the term ETFE is unfamiliar, just think Beijing's Water Cube from the 2008 Olympics. The initials stand for ethylene tetrafluoroethylene - a light but strong transparent plastic. It's impossible for anyone acquainted with the Beijing Summer Olympic Games - and everyone in China knows all about the games - to see Oceanus and not associate it with the Water Cube. The building serves as a living monument to the 2008 games that were such a source of pride for China, and is as close as most visitors to Macau will ever get to the original Water Cube. It's a powerful subliminal reminder that SJM's roots are in Macau - even if Stanley Ho is from Hong Kong - and China, as Ho's rivals build replicas of their Las Vegas properties in Macau. Oceanus makes gambling both Olympian and patriotic. SJM dubs Oceanus "Macau's first casino" because it's just steps from Porto Exterior and the ferry terminal for most boats from Hong Kong and the mainland. (Much less convincingly, Oceanus is also marginally the closest casino to the North Border Gate crossing from the mainland). The location reinforces key SJM corporate themes and strategies.
Most visitors to Macau just come for the day, and SJM caters to that market. From Stanley Ho down, SJM preaches that day trippers want to maximize playing time, giving its Macau peninsula locations a key advantage over more distant Cotai. Oceanus' proximity to Porto Exterior, where daily ferry traffic exceeds 50,000 passengers, is tough to beat.
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