Mr Witty (pictured) is director, business development for table games equipment specialist Paltronics Macau Ltd.

He said the firm’s Infinity sic bo dice shaker not only deals with that issue – by eliminating the parts moving against each other that are used in conventional dice shakers – but also offers a ‘rumble’ feature for the shaker, eliminating the bane in the life of every casino operator and every sic bo player. That is the risk of ‘cocked’ dice, a situation where dice land on top or against each other and are not sitting ‘face up’, thus creating a potential for a dispute between the player and the house.

“A cocked dice can be a big problem,” says Mr Witty. He was speaking to GGRAsia during the Macao Gaming Show 2015 at the Venetian Macao.

The Infinity sic bo dice shaker uses magnetism rather than mechanics to agitate the dice, so eliminating the risk of a mechanical failure in the shaker, and allowing the shaker to have a ‘rumble’ facility that will settle the dice during the act of shaking.

“Infinity does not use a solenoid. It has a linear actuator, which means there are no touching components. That means it’s a maintenance-free device,” explained Mr Witty.

“Dice shakers in a market like Macau are working 24/7. A solenoid is a physical device. They work until they fail, and when they fail it is a huge disruption for the house and for the player. Our product was designed purely around how to get round the problem of the solenoid component,” he explained.

He added: “An actuator is much like a speaker – it uses magnetism to ‘pop’ the shaker and move the dice. The dice shaker can ‘pop’ or it can ‘rumble’. A ‘pop’ gives a very strong bounce, or we can rumble the platform very gently, to try and settle the dice and avoid the issue of ‘cocked’ dice.”

At Macao Gaming Show, Paltronics also showed its automatic dice recognition system for Infinity sic bo shaker.

In Asia, sic bo dice shakers have traditionally been operated with ‘cover on’ during the actual shaking process, so that bets could still be taken up to the point the cover was removed, said Mr Witty.

“I think the reason originally for ‘lid on’, was it allowed Asian players to place their bets after the result has occurred. So they have a feeling they are able to ‘influence’ the outcome in some way,” said the Paltronics executive.

“But now you are finding that more and more casino operators are tending to go ‘lid off’ because it can speed up the game, and the players can actually see the rumble. They tend to like to see that,” said Mr Witty.

Paltronics’ Infinity sic bo shaker can be sold as an individual unit, or teamed with the firm’s Clarity sic bo playing surface.

“The Clarity product has a very thin light box system, with integrated LEDs, that can sit into a standard insert on top of the table. It’s completely sealed and completely maintenance free. Having a maintenance-free light box table and a maintenance-free sic bo shaker is very important for casino operators,” said Mr Witty.

But Mr Jolly cautions: that will not trigger an overnight revolution in Macau’s gaming mix. The city will remain a table-centric market in the near- to mid-term, he says.

“We do believe that as the mass market continues to develop, and certainly [with] the pushing of that area, there is more opportunity for slot machines [and] electronic table games with both live dealer and non-live dealer,” Mr Jolly told GGRAsia during the Macao Gaming Show 2015, which ends today at the Venetian Macao.

He added: “We do see that [the slot segment] of the market will grow, but predominantly [Macau] is still a major table market. There are some 15,000 to 16,000 machines in the market, including the multi-stations as well. When you look at the size of the [Macau gaming] market, that is not really a big number.”

Mr Jolly stated that the total number of slot machines in Macau is still low compared with mature gaming jurisdictions. “Look at markets like Australia, with 200,000 machines, and North America, with 900,000 machines,” he added.

“[Macau] is not going to grow overnight to those sort of numbers or anything like that. But there is steady growth and there has been steady growth in the slot revenue numbers as well.”

Market-wide, slot machine revenue in Macau is likely in 2015 to post the first annual decrease since the first casino outside Stanley Ho Hung Sun’s monopoly opened in the city in 2004. Revenue from this segment stood at MOP8.8 billion (US$1.1 billion) for the first nine months of 2015, down by 22 percent in year-on-year terms, according to official data from Macau’s gaming regulator. Still, the segment outperformed the overall market. The latter contracted by 36 percent year-on-year in the January to September period.

The Macau casino market had fewer than 2,300 slot machine units in 2004. The number peaked at 16,585 in 2012. It declined in the following two years, but began increasing in the second quarter of this year, at the time of the opening of the second phase of casino resort Galaxy Macau in Cotai.

A number of gaming industry analysts have noted that the Macau government wants to shift the city’s tourism focus to mass-market entertainment – especially non-gaming varieties. Local authorities have stated that the number of new-to-market live gaming tables granted to each of the several casino resorts under construction on Cotai will depend on the non-gaming attractions offered by those venues. No similar restrictions exist for the number of new-to-market slot machines.

Slot machines are very popular in Western casino jurisdictions, and are a primary revenue source of mass gaming revenue. Industry analysts say mass players in places like the United States favour slot machines because they are reluctant to bet large amounts on table games – which usually have higher minimum bets than machines – and are reassured by the relative simplicity of playing slot machines.

Mr Jolly said one of the problems in Macau is that a large portion of the mass market comes from mainland China and these players are not familiar with slot gambling. “We need to make sure their learning experience, or their initial experience, is a good one to get them back next time they visit Macau,” he stated.

Positive outlook for Sci Games

Commenting on the operations of Scientific Games in Asia, Mr Jolly stated the company was continuing to push ahead with the integration of gaming equipment makers Bally Technologies Inc and WMS Industries Inc, which it acquired over the past two years.

“We have been working on bringing the companies together under one company identity,” he said. “However, the brand names – Bally, SHFL, WMS… – will still exist as product lines within the group,” Mr Jolly added.

Scientific Games, originally a specialist in lottery equipment and management, in November 2014 acquired slot machine and floor management systems specialist Bally Technologies in a transaction valued at US$5.1 billion. The deal came approximately one year after Bally Technologies acquired Nevada-based table games equipment and slot machine supplier SHFL entertainment Inc in a US$1.3-billion transaction.

In 2013, Scientific Games took over U.S.-based slot-machine maker WMS for US$1.5 billion.

Mr Jolly said he was optimistic about the business outlook in Asia for Scientific Games.

“Asia has been a great market for the company from the point of view that there has been a number of openings in this market – in Macau, we have had two openings [in 2015] and there is another four to go in the next two years.”

He added: “There is growth in the Philippines – we [the industry] have got Tiger Resort, [Leisure and Entertainment Inc’s casino resort in Manila] to open and there is talk of some other casinos through regional Philippines.”

Scientific Games is also following up potential developments in other regional markets, including South Korea, Cambodia, Laos and Japan, he stated.

Mr Jolly said that one of the strengths of Scientific Games following the acquisitions of Bally Technologies and WMS was the scope and depth of its research and development capabilities.

“We are very fortunate with the amount of research and development houses we have as a company now. We can make games much more specific to an area,” he said.

“For Australia and for Asia, we actually develop [product] in Australia and in our studios in China. But if we see products coming out of our U.S. or India studios that we think will work in this market, we can bring that across as well,” Mr Jolly added.

“The [Macau] government policy is now really focusing on the mass market, a segment that it really wants to grow,” Jay Chun (pictured) said in a press briefing on Wednesday during the Macao Gaming Show. The three-day event, taking place at the Venetian Macao, ends on Thursday.

The Macau government has imposed a cap that seeks to limit the growth of live dealer table numbers to 3 percent compound annual expansion until end-2022 from a base of 5,485 tables at the end of the fourth quarter in 2012.

Mr Chun said the Macau authorities have made it clear that they want the city’s casinos to be more focused on a leisure experience, not just pure gaming. “I don’t think the [Macau] government would have a kind of policy to limit the number of EGMs,” he stated.

The focus on mass-market business by gaming operators would be a very good opportunity for manufacturers, as casinos would need more machines to support growth in the mass segment, said the executive.

With the new casino openings in Macau’s Cotai district next year, the market will have a shortage of dealers for live gaming tables, said Mr Chun. “EGMs will have to play a major role in [Macau] casinos,” he added.

Hong Kong-listed Paradise Entertainment develops, supplies and sells electronic gaming systems in Macau and internationally under the LT Game brand. Its gaming products include the Live Multi Game (LMG) machine, featuring a live dealer but electronic betting and bet settlement.

The company also provides casino management services in Macau under service agreements with two existing Macau operators.

Paradise Entertainment is exhibiting at the Macao Gaming Show its LMG-6 terminal with additional gaming features, as well as its fast betting terminal and E-Baccarat table. The firm will likely launch three or four new products early next year, said Mr Chun.

Paradise Entertainment’s offering includes also non-gaming products such as the firm’s first currency exchange kiosk. The firm’s chairman said the new range of non-gaming products could help bring a new stream of revenue for the company.

Growing demand

In August, Paradise Entertainment reported revenue of HKD571.1 million (US$73.7 million) for the six months to June 30, down 6.4 percent from the prior-year period. Revenue from sales and leasing of LMG terminals – in the latter case on a revenue-sharing basis – increased 42.5 percent year-on-year to HKD114 million.

“We are comfortable in the Macau market … and looking overseas we had a breakthrough this year, especially in the U.S. market,” said Mr Chun.

The firm said earlier this year that 24 LMG terminals on trial at the Palazzo in Las Vegas had been converted “into an outright sale”. LT Game products are going through the approval process in several states in the United States, and they have already been approved in Nevada.

In May, Paradise Entertainment’s chairman said the firm was aiming to deploy 700 machines in the U.S. this year, although the final number may fall short of the target.

“We do have quite a strong demand in the United States,” Mr Chun said on Wednesday. But he added: “I think total sales [in the U.S.] might be lower than what was originally expected.”

For its established LMG product, Paradise Entertainment has 200 units deployed in casinos outside of Macau and 3,723 units installed in 18 casinos in Macau, including 1,700 units at its self-managed gaming venues, it said on Wednesday.

The firm deployed 170 new LMG terminals in the Macau market in the first half of 2015. In October, Paradise Entertainment said it installed 63 units at casino hotel Lan Kwai Fong on Macau peninsula.

The company is also aiming to expand its business in the Asia Pacific region. Mr Chun said the firm has received orders from gaming operators in the Philippines and has installed units in casinos in Cambodia and Russia.

Paradise Entertainment should soon start selling its LMG terminals in Europe, said the firm’s chairman. “I think the U.K. will probably be the first market where we will install our products,” stated Mr Chun. Sales in the U.K. are likely to start in the first quarter of 2016, he added.

“Paradise will become a global gaming supplier,” Mr Chun said on Wednesday, adding that he expects product sales to increase between 20 percent and 30 percent next year.

“The number of junkets – who are responsible for 80 to 90 percent of the VIP business in Macau – their ranks have been thinned out. Out of around 235 licensed junkets, maybe 140 or fewer are in operation today. So nobody is willing to say ‘Okay, we have turned the corner on VIP’,” said Robert McBain, chief financial officer of SJM Holdings Ltd.

He was speaking during a conference panel on the second day of the Macao Gaming Show 2015 at the Venetian Macao. It was moderated by Karen Tang, a senior analyst for Deutsche Bank AG who covers the gaming market.

Mr McBain was responding to a question from Ms Tang about the current challenges in the Macau gaming market.

“The VIP market is still not finding the bottom yet – or I would phrase it as ‘I’m not ready to call the bottom’… and I think you would find that for most of the participants in the industry,” added the executive.

The number of licensed gaming promoters in Macau fell from 217 in January 2014 to just 183 in January this year – a decline of 16 percent – according to figures from the city’s gaming regulator. The figures include both companies and individuals licensed as junkets.

Macau’s casino GGR for October fell 28.4 percent year-on-year to MOP20.06 billion (US$2.5 billion), according to official data. It was the 17th straight month of GGR retreat measured year-on-year but the best monthly tally for the industry since May. Analysts have said the decline is led by the VIP segment.

Nonetheless Ms Tang had noted in a report on Tuesday that there were also challenges in getting the more profitable mass-market segment to make up the difference – this segment is also declining, albeit at a slower rate than VIP. She said Studio City, a US$3.2-billion casino resort on Cotai that opened on October 27 without any junket rooms, had – based on month-to-date industry returns – “failed to grow the market”.

“The Macau gaming market is doing in gaming revenue what it was doing in 2010,” said Mr McBain on the Wednesday panel. “You could say we have lost five years of growth. Even if we see some modest growth early next year, we are kind of crawling our way back to 2011 [levels],” he added.

“That’s the challenge we are facing with most of the investment projects that were undertaken during the boom in 2012 and 2013,” stated Mr McBain. His firm is already publicly committed to spending HKD30 billion (US$3.9 billion) on a new Cotai project called Lisboa Palace, due to be completed at the end of 2017. Mr McBain noted however that while the company was likely to need bank financing for Lisboa Palace, it had HKD17 billion in net cash at the end of the third quarter.

Some investment analysts have said they expect SJM Holdings to lose share of casino gross gaming revenue as its five competitors all open new Cotai schemes ahead of SJM Holdings.

But Mr McBain indicated it was not special pleading to suggest that the traditional downtown area of Macau gaming would be resilient – citing the fact that most tourists still arrive either via the mainland’s land border with the Macau peninsula at Gongbei, or at the Macau Maritime Ferry Terminal at the Outer Harbour on the peninsula. SJM Holdings’ two flagship properties – the old Lisboa and the Grand Lisboa casino hotels – are both located in the downtown area of Macau.

A new ferry terminal at Taipa, designed to serve the Cotai market, has had long delays and currently is not scheduled to open until mid-2016 at the earliest. Another crossing point, the Lotus Bridge linking Cotai with the mainland’s Hengqin Island, is not yet fully integrated with the mainland’s long-distance bus and train networks and is still only lightly used.

“I don’t think you need to worry about the [Macau] peninsula casinos drifting down [to a situation akin] to the downtown Las Vegas casinos,” said Mr McBain, referring to how the gaming and tourism hub of Las Vegas shifted from the traditional casino area to the Las Vegas Strip, starting in the 1980s.

“Sometimes people make that analogy with the two Las Vegas markets… I think we [on Macau peninsula] will always have the strongest portion of the day trip market, because of the entry points to Macau. And we [the peninsula properties] do have a lot of the new capital expenditure, and nice properties on the Macau peninsula at all different price points,” added the SJM Holdings CFO.

Non-Chinese players

Asked where Macau and other Asian casino markets would get their high value players if the Chinese authorities wished to see a medium- or long-term moderation in the amount of money crossing the country’s border for use in high stakes gambling – as some analysts have suggested – Mr McBain commented: “We do have interests [in players] beyond mainland China. We have been recruiting [gaming industry professionals] that specialise in Southeast Asia and in Northern Asia.”

Mr McBain also referred to an official policy affecting Macau that the city’s Chief Executive Fernando Chui Sai On mentioned in the Policy Address for Fiscal Year 2016 delivered on Tuesday. It is to turn Macau into a “World Centre of Tourism and Leisure”.

“Nobody has a precise interpretation of the wording in the [People’s Republic’s] 12th Five-Year Plan which mandates Macau to become the ‘World Centre of Tourism and Leisure’. How much nuance is in that word ‘world’? Does that mean we should be reaching out beyond mainland China for more of our bread and butter? I think it does. But I don’t see anybody [officials] scoring the players like a mahjong game… if the player’s non-Chinese.”

Mr McBain added some comments relating to the Macau government’s “mid-term review” of the gaming industry, which officials say will have some bearing on discussions about possible refreshment or extension of the gaming rights of the six operators when the current permissions expire – in SJM Holdings’ case in the year 2020.

“I don’t say it’s a precise system of rewards. Maybe when this interim review comes out it might shed some light,” said Mr McBain. “It should be quite soon that some kind of summary comes out. It might shed some light on the [Macau] government’s value system [for the gaming industry], because they certainly asked us a lot of questions [during the mid-term review process] about the gambling population as well as investment activities and the local policies on hiring.”

“A lot of the operators’ actions in Macau are really led by the government,” not by market forces, Mr Kalé said in a panel during the second day of the Macao Tourism and Culture Summit 2015 with Gaming Topics, the conference segment of the Macao Gaming Show 2015. “That means artificial distortions to the market,” he added.

Mr Kalé, a former adviser of Macau-based gaming operator Sands China Ltd, said an example of the distortions created by the government was the industry’s current focus on non-gaming. Operators would be better off investing on improved player segmentation and new ways to increase yield per player, he suggested.

“The future of Macau is gaming; it is definitely not non-gaming,” Mr Kalé argued, highlighting that the latter still accounted for just a small fraction of the overall casino resort industry profits in the city.

A number of gaming industry analysts have noted that the Macau government wants to shift the city’s tourism focus to mass-market entertainment – especially non-gaming varieties. Local authorities have stated that the number of new-to-market live gaming tables granted to each of the several casino resorts under construction on Cotai will depend on the non-gaming attractions offered by those venues.

Mr Kalé was talking in a panel about the lessons Macau can borrow from Las Vegas in the United States.

Like Las Vegas, Macau should be able to constantly reinvent itself to adapt to changes in consumer profile, stated panelist Michael Tsai, managing director of U.S.-based consultancy Red Rocks Analytics LLC. “Las Vegas is a very good example of diversification to align its [offering] with demand,” he stated.

Roberto Coppola, global director of market research and consumer insights at consultancy YWS Design and Architecture – with offices in Singapore and Las Vegas – said Macau needed to follow the trend in Las Vegas and invest more on consumer research for better decision making. Otherwise, the city could fall prey to decisions “based on ego, or what ‘I think people want’,” he added.

Mr Coppola noted that the development of the gaming industry in Las Vegas had historically three phases – “cowboys, mafia and [the current one] MBAs”, the latter characterised by a scientific approach to the business decision making, based on research and data.

Once the expansion is complete it will “nearly double [the] capacity that they had before,” said Phil Harrison (pictured), senior manager regulator development, compliance and quality assurance for GLI Australia.

GLI said earlier this month that it would relocate its Sydney laboratory from Rosebery to Seven Hills in the coming months, which would allow for a 30 percent increase in engineering staff as well as a 25 percent increase in laboratory floor space.

“This is to cope with the growing demand for testing for Australia, New Zealand and in Asian markets,” Mr Harrison told GGRAsia on Wednesday.

GLI currently has three labs in Australia and one in Macau.

Mr Harrison said the company has been paying attention to emerging gaming markets in the Asia Pacific region, which could include Japan, South Korea, Saipan, Cambodia and possibly Taiwan.

“Our expectation is that we are connected and informed of the markets as they are developing, so [that] we are aware of the policies that they’re developing within the regulators. That enables us to be ready for those markets when they become regulated and require independent testing,” Mr Harrison said.

He was speaking during the Macao Gaming Show. The three-day event, taking place at Venetian Macao, runs until Thursday afternoon.

Mr Harrison said the Macao Gaming Show showcases some “high-quality, very innovative products” coming from regional manufacturers. “Many of the smaller manufacturers and systems providers are preparing some very good products,” he noted.

There is “a lot of new companies that are starting in countries in Asia such as Taiwan, Japan, [South] Korea and the Philippines,” said Mr Harrison. “We’re here [at MGS] to provide them with information, answer questions and to offer the services that they need to get their products certified for those markets,” he added.

Among GLI’s strengths is the capacity to offer a “unified testing environment around the world,” said the executive.

“Our testing environment records all the test results for the product and if they move their product for another market, we can reuse that testing [data] and only [newly] test the specific issues that [are] remaining for that market,” he explained.

Mr Harrison said that this kind of approach saves time and money, while improving consistency through the testing.

GLI is committed to maintaining its presence in Asia in order to “work with local companies in their language” and in the same time zone, Mr Harrison added.

The company regularly provides consultancy services to governments in Asia. It has an office in the Philippines, where it recently assisted the country’s gaming regulator in developing the nation’s first full set of technical standards for electronic gaming machines (EGMs).

In Macau, GLI is still dealing with the retesting of EGMs that have to comply with the updated technical standards. Macau’s gaming regulator, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, last year issued version 1.1 of the city’s EGM technical requirements.

“All the manufacturers need to submit the machine for retesting,” GLI Asia’s test engineer Ben Leong told GGRAsia at MGS. “It’s a huge task for all manufacturers to renew their machines,” he added.

The company installed its first Sic Bo Bonus Jackpot cabinet (pictured), with four progressive levels of jackpot, in the casino at Venetian Macao, with a total of 30 playing stations. The massive main cabinet is 4 metres high and 3 metres wide, and it can accommodate up to 100 stations.

“There has been very positive feedback on the performance of this machine,” said Shunsuke Nakamura, Sega Sammy Creation’s general manager for public relations.

“We want to expand the installation of this machine to other casinos in Macau,” Mr Nakamura told GGRAsia during the Macao Gaming Show.

The three-day trade show, taking place at the Venetian Macao, runs until Thursday afternoon.

Sega Sammy Creation – a subsidiary of Japan-based Sega Sammy Holdings Inc – was established in June 2013 as a gaming machine manufacturer, with an initial focus on supersized products. The company has said previously that it also plans to introduce slot machines to the market.

The Sic Bo Bonus Jackpot machine was the first to be approved by regulators in Macau, said Mr Nakamura. “We are trying to increase sales in the Macau market. We do have other products awaiting regulatory approval – once they’re approved, it would help expand our portfolio,” he added.

The Sega Sammy Group has decades of experience in consumer and arcade games. That experience has been crucial to develop original products for casino floors, focusing on design that is appealing and optimising the user interface, said Mr Nakamura.

Following the first installation in Macau, the firm “will focus on collecting opinions and the feedback from customers in order to improve the performance and experience of our products,” Mr Nakamura added.

Weike is a maker of slot machines, electronic table games and casino game systems that is licensed as a manufacturer by the Casino Regulatory Authority of Singapore. The firm says Casino Game Maker’s standalone electronic table games complement Weike’s multi-terminal game offerings such as Infinity Baccarat and Infinity Roulette.

“We like the technology they have. They have some unique products that complement our own, such as the standalone Quad Roulette and the standalone 8 Baccarat which we see a market for here in Asia,” explained Peter Kup-Ferroth (pictured), vice president of product marketing for Weike. He was speaking to GGRAsia at the Macao Gaming Show 2015.

“We distribute their product in all Asian markets bar Macau,” explained the executive.

The company said it continues to strengthen its own development team.

“We have relocated some of our [game graphics] artists from our factory to a new office in Malaysia, and added software engineering there as well… We moved that technology hub closer to Kuala Lumpur – compared to our factory location in Malaysia – to make it easier to recruit talent,” said Mr Kup-Ferroth.

Weike’s stand at Macao Gaming Show features a newly released slot game called Guan Yunchang, which the marketing executive says has been “well received across the various markets”.

“We have had plenty of customers here at MGS, particularly from the Philippines, Macau and Cambodia,” he added.

Looking ahead to 2016, Mr Kup-Ferroth says the main focus will be “to continue to develop our slots, their performance and ensure we give operators value for their money”. He added: “We will also bring to the market the standalone table products I mentioned, and enhance our current electronic table products and enhance our systems to give the customers greater performance and even stronger support”.

The 84-inch (213-centimetre) LCD monitor on the Behemoth cabinet is guaranteed to stand out on a casino floor, says the firm. It features banquette-style seats so that several people can sit in front of each screen, and two bet buttons per unit so that friends can take turns at betting.

“These are not high volume products in production terms,” explained Matt Humphreys (pictured), key account manager for the company’s local unit Aristocrat (Macau) Pty Ltd.

“They would be typically placed at the entrance to a casino to draw the attention of customers. What we are told by a lot of our [casino operator] customers is that the vast majority of people that walk into their venues, particularly in Macau, don’t sit at a slot machine. So we are trying to look at ways of attracting non-slot players to at least sit and experience an electronic device,” stated Mr Humphreys.

“Historically at Aristocrat we’ve been very strong in games that appeal to gamblers and VIP high limit players,” he added.

“With Cotai opening up now and the market moving to mass, we are starting to introduce some new product lines in the standalone progressive space, and more of the entertainment-style products. Part of the strategy there is to open up some new platforms with some unique cabinets, including Behemoth,” stated Mr Humphreys.

Aristocrat is also showing at Macao Gaming Show its game Third Prince, a title on the firm’s Helix cabinet and with a narrative based on a popular Chinese fable.

“All the local customers that come through Macau know the story. We have included a battle sequence in the game – where the hero Nezha fights the Dragon Lord and his underlings – so it takes your typical slot experience a step further, and adds some entertainment for the local demographic,” explained Mr Humphreys.

The Macao Gaming Show– comprised of a trade show and conference – is organised by the Macau Gaming Equipment Manufacturers Association. The event runs until Thursday afternoon.

“While developing our gaming industry, we shall not put other industries aside,” said Gina Lei, president of the organising committee, in a speech during the opening ceremony (pictured).

Ms Lei added: “Macao Gaming Show has – in the planning of its events – incorporated the Macau SAR government policy of promoting the development of the city’s cultural and creative industries… By doing this, we hope that gaming – the city’s dominant industry – can help promote the development of other industries.”

A number of gaming industry analysts have noted that the Macau government wants to shift the city’s tourism focus to mass-market entertainment – especially non-gaming varieties. Local authorities have stated that the number of new-to-market live gaming tables granted to each of the several casino resorts under construction on Cotai will depend on the non-gaming attractions offered by those venues.

This year’s Macao Gaming Show covers more than 10,000 square metres (107,639 sq feet). The organisers did not disclose the number of participating exhibitors. The 2014 edition of the trade show attracted a total of 146 exhibitors from 20 countries.

The event has the backing of the Macau government. It is supported by four government departments, including the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, the city’s casino regulator. It is also sponsored by Macao Foundation, a body linked to the Macau government.

While casino suppliers still take up most of the exhibition floor in this year’s edition of the Macao Gaming Show, there are several portions of it dedicated to non-gaming elements, including Macao’s cultural and creative industries. France and South Korea each have a themed area to promote non-gaming products and services from those countries.

Davis Fong Ka Chio, director of the Institute for the Study of Commercial Gaming at University of Macau, says it is important for gaming trade shows in the city to promote economic diversification and non-gaming elements.

“We have been struggling for a long time trying to understand what can be the synergies between the gaming and non-gaming sectors. There is not just one formula,” Mr Fong told GGRAsia on the sidelines of the Macao Gaming Show opening ceremony.

He added: “Operators are now seeking different formulas on how to potentiate the synergies between gaming and non-gaming. [Macao Gaming Show] is a good platform to let people discuss and find a good model for Macau.”