Vegas Rolls the Dice in MACAO

摘要

With American moguls pouring in billions, the Chinese are building another Strip on the South China Sea. AFEW BLOCKS FROM MACAO'S eerily vacant international airport, the wind blows a bamboo basket through wild grass. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Las Vegas tycoon Sheldon Adelson sketches his vision for this weedy swath of Macao: a 120-acre, 10 billion dollar "Cotai Strip" of 20 casino-resorts with up to 3,000 rooms each, operated by big chains like Hilton and Marriott. The anchor hotelwill be a reproduction of the Venetian, one of Adelson's Vegas casinos, with opera-singing gondoliers plying a man-made canal, stores masquerading as Italian palazzos, a spa, a museum and so on. "Our advertising will say: 'Asian Las Vegas'," says Adelson.