Half-finished casinos and dropping revenues have fuelled fears that Macau’s staggering growth has faltered, but analysts insist the gaming haven remains a sure long-term bet. Macau has transformed itself from a sleepy backwater to a dazzling entertainment centre in the last five years, with foreign and Chinese-owned casinos sprouting up across the territory. The city of just 550,000 now takes in more gaming revenue than Las Vegas and Atlantic City combined…

South Korean online gaming market will exceed USD 1.7 billion by 2009, driven by new releases and a fervent gaming culture. Pearl Research’s Games Market in Korea paper highlighted sophisticated information technology infrastructure and the fact that 80 households are connected to the Internet. The study revealed that 67 of people in South Korea between the ages of 20-30 paid for online content, with 91 buying music and the 39 purchasing community and avatar items for online services.

Betting group Paddy Power has confirmed it will examine the possibility of entering the casino market in Ireland once the Government publishes long-awaited legislation to revamp existing laws governing the sector. Justice Minister Dermot Ahern has signalled that he will soon move to introduce new laws, describing the current rules that have enabled private member clubs to operate as casinos as „way past their sell-by date“.

2007 and the first semester of 2008 have been marked by a “change of attitude” towards online gambling on the part of both the executive and the judiciary. This can be largely explained by the sending of a reasoned opinion by the European Commission to France last June, which put pressure on the one hand on the government to modify its gaming legislation to make it consistent with European law, and on the other hand on courts.

The Oklahoma-based Quapaw Tribe’s USD 200 million Downstream Casino Resort is set to open July 5 on the Kansas state line about seven miles west of Joplin. A 12-story, 226-room hotel will be the tallest structure for miles around and is scheduled to open in the late fall. The first of 2,000 slot machines have arrived and are being installed. The casino won’t have craps or roulette, but it will offer blackjack and other table games, mini-baccarat, a poker room and a race book.

Mr Sarkozy declared it publicly a few weeks ago: France will open its online gaming market. The process has thus now become irreversible. At the beginning of this month, the report issued by Mr. Bruno Durieux on the opening of the French online gaming market was given to the Prime Minister, Mr. François Fillon, and to the ministry of budget, Mr. Woerth. The President of the French Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy, is due to “validate” it in a near future.

The local government is investigating the possibility of ending its monopoly on gambling and allowing foreign firms to advertise and operate legally. Speaking on radio over the weekend, Kristian Jensen, Minister for Tax for Denmark, stated that it is currently illegal for foreign gambling sites to market their products in the Scandinavian nation. However, he said that his office is investigating the possibility of opening up the market to allow non-Danish gambling companies…

In France, Budget Minister Eric Woerth has announced that the Government of President Nicolas Sarkozy is looking to open the market to gambling firms from elsewhere in the European Union next year or by the start of 2010. Woerth told French daily newspaper Le Parisien that he expects the government to complete plans this year regarding a test phase in 2009 or 2010 and that private betting providers licensed to operate under French regulations will be subject to the same conditions and tax policies as Pari Mutuel Urbain (PMU), the current monopoly betting operator.

Despite the fact that attendance at the second South-East European Gaming Expo seemed to suffer because the show was held during a week of riots in Belgrade, all the signs of an emerging gaming market in Serbia were there. The well-organised show was larger this year, and many international companies made their Belgrade debuts. It is a shame, then, that the organisers were not rewarded with higher visitor numbers.

Yesterday it started in London the most spectacular edition in ICE history, in Earls Court exhibition center in the city of London, reaffirming its category as the main European event of the sector, and consolidating, once more, as one of the annual most important trade events in the industry worldwide. The first day, which gathered the main international firms in London, showed a very good level of public all day, and exhibitors were very pleased with the first results.

MGM Mirage, the world’s second largest casino operator, and the daughter of billionaire Stanley Ho are betting their Macau venture will grab a slice of the VIP market, which nets about two-thirds of the Chinese city’s gambling revenue. The USD 1.25 billion, 600-room MGM Grand Macau casino, which opened December 18, would benefit from its position on the waterfront in Macau’s city centre, near established VIP venues Wynn Macau, Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd’s StarWorld and her father’s Grand Lisboa, Pansy Ho told reporters at a briefing in the southern Chinese city.

Following a sustained attack from the European Court of Justice (ECJ) regarding its restricted Internet gambling market, French officials have initiated talks in Brussels to consider the opening up of the industry to foreign competitors. A spokesperson for the French government said it wanted to show they were open to discussions. Meanwhile, gambling monopoly Française des Jeux said that talks would give them the opportunity to put an end to the “unfair competition from internet gambling sites”.