Wager Mage
Wager Mage
Photo: Anna Shvets
According to the Quran, Muslims are forbidden to gamble. However, there are casinos in countries where Islam is the predominant religion, and there are numerous other countries throughout the world with casinos that focus their marketing strategies on attracting gamers from Muslim-majority countries.
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Read More »According to the Quran, Muslims are forbidden to gamble. However, there are casinos in countries where Islam is the predominant religion, and there are numerous other countries throughout the world with casinos that focus their marketing strategies on attracting gamers from Muslim-majority countries. In the 1960s and ’70s, the high-end casinos in London were populated with Arab customers awash with their newly found petrodollars. Millions of pounds sterling were exchanged on a nightly basis. Today, in the London casinos, one will still find some of the largest players from Arab nations rubbing shoulders with Asian players. Despite all the historical and current troubles in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Middle Easterners continue to seek gambling opportunities both within the region and in the West and the Far East, where larger integrated resorts attract the highest-net-worth players from around the world. With such intense investment and development originating from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds and other major corporations, especially in the hospitality and leisure sector, the region may be primed to become a major gaming and integrated resort destination. However, it is important to consider the previous successes and failures of the market, as well as the delicate balance of casino gaming within the culture of any Muslim-majority nation.
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Read More »Istithmar World, a subsidiary of Dubai World, invested heavily in Kerzner International in 2006 to take the company private, emerging with a 30 percent share of the company. Kerzner International once owned the Atlantis Paradise Island resort in the Bahamas, but its only gaming property today is the Magazan Beach and Golf Resort in Morocco. Other non-Middle Eastern countries that attract customers from these regions include the approximately 25 in Northern Cyprus; Melco’s City of Dreams resort under construction in Cyprus; the five casinos in Batumi, Georgia, which is just a short drive away from the Turkish border; the casinos in Tbilisi, Georgia, which are widely popular with guests from Turkey, Azerbaijan, Israel and Iran; and many other countries in the region. In addition to those listed above, London casinos still attract some of the highest-net-worth players in the region. One would need only to walk into a London club to see who these big players are. In addition to the few Chinese players in the region who will always find their way to the casino, the casinos’ largest whales tend to be of the Middle Eastern persuasion.
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Read More »Is this a billion-dollar market? Yes. However, not all of the money is filtered through the aforementioned casinos. Much of it finds its way over to larger casino resorts in Asian countries, such as Genting Highlands in Malaysia. In Malaysia, while it is illegal for Malay Muslims to gamble, there is no particular gambling ban for Muslims from other countries. When walking on the casino floor at Genting, while the majority of players are coming from China and elsewhere in Asia, the presence of gamers from the Middle East is staggering. While the Middle East does generate substantial levels of gaming play, it comes at a price. Deep discounts on losses are to be expected. While loss discounts of 20 percent to 30 percent are expected, some casinos in North Cyprus will discount players’ losses by as much as 50 percent. The game of choice is Russian Poker, a house-banked version of five-card poker. While the hold percentage of this game can reach upwards of 35 percent, which makes large discounts on play more palatable to the operators, larger players will often negotiate the rules with the casinos prior to visiting. By adjusting the number of hands that one can play simultaneously, and through other unique rule changes, the players can lower the house’s advantage. Many of the guests who frequent these casinos arrive through a junket program. With these programs, the casinos often need to arrange for the players to receive discounted or free hotel rooms and food, and often some amount of free play or direct bet in the casino. In certain circumstances, the operator will share a percentage of the total win from the group with the junket operator. However, operators must be very careful in selecting the junkets with whom they partner, as the players arriving to Middle Eastern casinos via junkets are not usually high worth. Very often, the average junket player might only lose $800, against which the casino had $400 of promotional allowances. While there can be high levels of risk taken on by the operators based on considerations for promotional allowances and potential adjustments to the rules of the game, these casinos can make substantial amounts of revenue. Those casinos that are successful can generate upwards of $4,000 per table per day. While slots are not as popular, they are growing and beginning to attract more players. Despite the Sharia law mandate prohibiting Muslims from gambling, gamers from the Middle East account for a sizeable share of gaming dollars spent throughout the world. However, as most of these dollars are lost to casinos outside of the Middle East, a significant challenge remains in ensuring that these revenues are kept closer to home. While many Muslim-majority countries chose to offer casino gaming only to foreigners or non-Muslim visitors, the performance of these casinos is often hindered by high tax rates and impractical regulatory barriers. The ideal Middle Eastern gaming market would enable casino operators to achieve sustainable gaming revenues with a moderate tax rate that yields the optimal amount of revenue to the host nation, all while respecting the rich culture and norms of Muslim-majority nations and ensuring that casinos and integrated resorts are welcomed within local communities, an essential aspect of any successful gaming operation.
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