Hong Kong Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Frederick Ma said that the island will not open up to casino gambling to compete with neighboring Macao. Ma acknowledged that Hong Kong's tourism flow is suffering from the casinos build in Macao, but at this time the possible social ills and public opinion outweigh the profits from building casinos in Hong Kong.

Although Hong Kong allows certain forms of gambling - soccer betting, horse racing and number games - there will be no casino gambling for now, despite the business-pressure on the government. Neighboring countries are slowly opening up to the casinos, such as Singapore, while Macao recently surpassed Las Vegas in gaming revenues, making it the hottest spot for casino gambling in the world with $6.95 billion revenue in 2006, compared to Las Vegas Strip with $6.69 billion in revenues the same year. The Venetian Macao, which is the largest casino resort in the world, recently welcomed it's one millionth visitor, which means that the casino has seen over 55,000 visitors each day since it opened its doors on August 28th.

"The government doesn't think it would help the tourism industry if Hong Kong built one or two casinos because Macau has many casinos like Las Vegas," Frederick Ma said, adding that Hong Kong will rather focus on adding more convention space, cruise ship terminals and other non-gambling tourist attractions.

By OGPaper.com