The title of "World's Largest Casino" belongs to
the Venetian Macau, now that the newly constructed gambling resort has opened
its doors to a sea of bettors in the busiest gambling destination in the world.
On August 28th, the Venetian Macau's parent company, Las Vegas Sands, held an
opening ceremony in the property's 15,000 seat arena, where Diana Ross
commemorated the ceremony with a live rendition of her song "Ain't No Mountain
High Enough".
Nothing short of enormous, the
Venetian Macau needed over 20,000 construction workers and three million sheets
of gold leaf to help turn it into the fancy casino resort that it is. Complete
with tiny canals like the real Venice, the Venetian Macau promises to be a
central landmark in Macau, likely surpassing Wynn's Macau resort in popularity.
Using enough power to feed 300,000 homes and employing 16,000 people to keep it
up and running, the Venetian Macau is certainly the largest edifice in all of
Asia. The resort has 3,000 guest suites, over 1 million square feet of
convention floor space, over 1.5 million square feet of retail shopping and a
550,000 square foot casino offering 800 table games and 3,400 slot machines.
It is one of the most expensive
too. According to the South China Morning Post, the cost to build the resort
exceeded Macau's public works budgest spanning the last five years. Although
construction costs surpassed the original $1.8 billion estimation by little over
a half billion, Las Vegas Sands feels good about the future. Eager gamblers have
already begun swamping the casino floor from the second its doors opened.
What Las Vegas Sands is more
concerned about currently are the rising costs to build its Singapore casino,
Marina Bay Sands, projected to be finished in 2009. Possibly rising as much as
40% above the original $3.6 billion estimate, higher construction costs are the
chief factor to blame. And now with Indonesia banning the export of sand and
stricter barge cargo checks disrupting granite supplies, construction costs are
rising even higher.