Macau these days is offering a similar heart-pounding experience to millions of other Asians, albeit on a less hedonistic scale. Downstairs in the Sands' main casino, which nearly sparked a riot because of its popularity when it opened nine months ago, it's 2 a.m. and the place is teeming. Everyone from young couples to old ladies jostle around the blackjack and fan-tan tables. On a stage behind a bar, a band featuring a blond Cuban vocalist in a shimmering gold bodysuit performs thumping covers of Shaggy and James Brown. Chinese tourists stand with mouths agape, unsure how to react. One of the musicians, desperate for approval, decides to give the crowd a quick lesson: "If you like this band, please clap your hands," he pleads.
Asia has never seen anything like it, and Macau is just warming up. Once a pleasant but seedy backwater—noteworthy only for its melting-pot architecture and cuisine and a handful of rundown gambling halls—the former colonial outpost is rapidly transforming into the region's pleasure dome: a paradise of fast bucks, showgirls, splendor and sin. Not far from the Sands, Las Vegas casino king Steve Wynn, who created the famed Mirage and Bellagio hotels, is opening a $700 million resort. A short drive away, on a stretch of reclaimed land called Cotai between Macau's two outer islands, another Vegas mogul, Sheldon Adelson, owner of the Sands, is building a $1.8 billion, 3,000-room Venetian hotel. Adelson envisions Cotai as a rival in scale and scope to the famed Las Vegas Strip, with a total of 20 hotels to be built at a cost of $12 billion. The Vegas tycoons plan to open opulent restaurants, stage cabaret shows, and attract NBA exhibition games and big-ticket rock acts.
Adelson says he's transforming Macau into "an Asian Las Vegas." Wynn labels Macau "the most exciting growth story of the decade." Propelled by hope and hype, real estate prices in Macau are soaring Shanghai-style. Macau-linked stocks have been among the hottest in the region. Meanwhile, the city's most photographed landmark, the ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral, is facing new competition for tourist eyeballs. Local magnate Stanley Ho is planning a theme park with an erupting volcano; the government is creating a colonial Portuguese square; and construction is under way on modern sports facilities, including a new arena, for this year's East Asian Games. Chinese President Hu Jintao visited the city in December to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Portugal's 1999 return of the territory to Chinese sovereignty, and to give Macau's Chief Executive, Edmund Ho, a very public pat on the back. "Macau's achievements since its return are a source of great joy to all of us," Hu said.
At the moment, Macau's potential seems brighter than Vegas neon. Over the first 11 months of 2004, 15.2 million tourists visited Macau, up 42% from the year before—an amazing number for a territory with a population of only 450,000 people. More impressive is the money they blow at the tables and slots. Last year, Macau's casinos raked in about $5.1 billion, up 34% from 2003. That's about the same as the Las Vegas Strip's gambling revenues. In fact, Marc Falcone, gaming analyst at Deutsche Bank in New York City, predicts that Macau will surpass the Strip this year. With 20% annual growth in gaming revenues expected over the next five years, Falcone says Macau could overtake the whole of Nevada as the world's biggest gaming market by the end of the decade.
That would make Macau the gambling center of the world. And why not? Its potential market is more than a billion people who live within a three-hour flight from the city. (Vegas, in contrast, has just 250 million residing within the same radius.) The rise of Asia's middle class means more and more potential punters have disposable income to splurge on roulette wheels and slot machines. In China alone, per-capita income has surged about 8% a year for the past two decades. Leisure time is expanding, and Asians who are obsessed with getting and spending are putting less emphasis on the former and more on the latter. "Modern Chinese are more receptive to Western lifestyles," says Francis Lui, director of Galaxy Resort & Casino, which is investing $700 million in three hotels in Macau. "Macau is in the right place at the right time."
Prentice Salter thinks so too—and he's grabbing a piece of the action. In 2002 the 33-year-old had a plum job managing the bars, clubs and restaurants at the Palms hotel in Las Vegas. But he left it behind when Adelson's company offered him a job in its new Macau venture. Salter was sent on a six-week tour of China's 10 largest cities to gather intelligence on what Chinese would want in a casino. He met with rich businessmen, slurped noodles with the locals, marveled at the country's spectacular growth, and became convinced that Macau was a sure thing. "I came back and was like, 'Yeah! This is a no-brainer,'" Salter beams. "So I sold the house, sold the car, sold the dog, flushed the fish down the toilet, and moved to China!"
Salter spent more than two years as the Sands' food-and-beverage director, then quit his job late last year. But he has no plans to return to Vegas, preferring to wager his future on Macau, where he's now planning his own gaming projects.
He now lives in an apartment on Macau's Taipa island that he's renovated into a pad so luxurious that the Rat Pack would feel right at home. The master bedroom boasts a Jacuzzi and a king-size bed elevated on a platform; the spacious kitchen has a professional beer tap. From a balcony, Salter enjoys a panoramic view of Macau peninsula, complete with flashing casino signs and a forest of construction cranes building new gaming parlors, hotels and other landmarks. "Imagine if I was on the ground in Vegas at Day One," Salter says. "Macau is going to do the same thing, but bigger and better."