Las Vegas Sands’ Macau subsidiary Sands China has been granted an extra 200 tables for its properties in the Far East gambling industry enclave. Sands CEO Edward Tracy announced the new tables were approved by the regulator last week with the company not yet revealing which property would benefit from the new tables. The news came after the government made a u-turn on an earlier decision to place a strict cap on table numbers. Instead they stated table numbers would be allowed to rise by 3 percent each year and Nasdaq report that Sands being allowed 200 more means the amount will reach 5,685 by the year end – 20 more than Macau is supposed to have. The company looked like being one of the worst affected by the government’s previous plans due to their Sands Cotai Central venue opening only last year and being limited by the cap.
Expansion of one of Macau’s points of entry is nearing completion with the amount of visitors passing through Gongbei’s border crossing to double as a result. Work on the expansion will be complete in “a few months” with the capacity likely to double from 260k to 300k travelers per day to 500k and mean more custom for the Chinese gambling industry enclave.
Unemployment in Macau stayed stable for the last quarter of 2012 as the amount out of work remained at 1.9 percent. The Statistics and Census Service explained that the figure covered the months from October to December, and stayed exactly the same compared to the previous period of September to November. For the year as a whole the figure was at just 2 percent and meant a total workforce in Macau of 357,000 with just 6,600 out of a job.
