Thai casinos opportunity has risk constraints: analysts

That was the warning message on Tuesday by three casino industry observers during a panel session of the conference segment of the Global Gaming Expo (G2E) Asia 2024 casino industry trade show in Macau.

“I’m very sceptical at this stage that Thailand is going to have have the wherewithal to actually create an industry with scale,” said Vitaly Umansky, gaming analyst at Seaport Research Partners.

“Many [Asian] governments look at development of the casino industry and they look at Macau and Singapore, and their first attempt is to replicate one of those two industries,” noted Mr Umansky. “The difficulty of approaching legalisation and development in that fashion is that both Macau in Singapore are entirely unique geographic and political constructs that are very difficult to replicate in most other countries around Asia and the rest of the world.”

In late March, Thai lawmakers supported a study recommending casinos be permitted in large entertainment complexes proposed for that nation. Thailand’s Ministry of Finance is leading work to examine the feasibility of legalising casino resorts in the country.

Mr Umansky said that the legalisation of casinos in Thailand faced two main types of risk. The first was linked with the need for a sound regulatory framework, in order for the country to be able to attract international, reputable investors.

The second he said, was political risk, adding that was harder to address. Mr Umansky argued that Thailand did not offer currently a “stable” political environment, “where an operator can come and commit billions of [U.S.] dollars in investment.”

He forecast that Thailand’s casino market would likely end up looking “a little bit more like the Philippines, with numerous casinos that are of smaller scale, and is effectively a suboptimal market for what it potentially could be.”

Mr Umansky also criticised a potential requirement for minimum investments of US$3.0-billion-plus.

He recalled that in the initial years after Macau’s casino liberalisation, operators were authorised to build smaller-scale venues like the Sands Macao casino and the StarWorld casino-hotel, allowing them to test the market and start generating cash flows. Only after that did the multibillion U.S. dollar investment projects in Cotai take off.

Eventually by 2030 there could be in Thailand around two US$1-billion casino properties, Mr Umansky forecast.

Fellow panellist Paul Bromberg, senior vice president, investigations at gaming consultancy Spectrum Gaming Group, recalled studies mentioning the possibility of up to eight casinos being allowed in Thailand. “That would be a mistake, especially initially”, he said, admitting however the existence of pressure by several regional governments to be entitled each to a casino resort.

“That’s going to be an issue for the central government,” he said.

In Mr Bromberg’s opinion, it was unlikely that any multibillion U.S. dollar project in Thailand would be ready by 2030.

Daniel Cheng, an industry analyst and author, also joined the panel. He said there was currently “a meeting of minds” in Thailand, and a “consensus between the ruling and opposition political blocks, that [casino legalisation] is something that they collectively see will go ahead.”

He suggested that actual legislation in that direction “could happen as soon as early next year”.

Mr Cheng cautioned however that the success of casino legalisation was not a given in Thailand. He recalled the international excitement around the casino legalisation process in Japan, and how it eventually fell short of expectations, with only one licence attributed, out of three available.