Macao surpasses Las Vegas as gambling centre
By the New York Times
SHANGHAI, Jan. 23 — Macao surpassed the Las Vegas Strip to become the world’s biggest gambling center in 2006, measured by total gambling revenue, according to industry analysts and government figures released today.
In the eight years since Macao, a former Portuguese colony on the coast near Hong Kong, was returned to Chinese control in 1999, it has experienced a huge boom in casino investment, and millions of mainland Chinese have been flooding into the tiny island territory to gamble. As a result, gambling revenue soared by 22 percent in 2006, reaching $6.95 billion, according to figures released by the local administration today.
Las Vegas has not yet released its own full-year revenue statistics. But its cumulative figures were trailing those of Macao in the final months of last year, and analysts estimate that the 2006 total will come in around $6.5 billion.
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