Here’s something we can all look forward to in 2014: the Brisbane casino race is on.
Queensland’s deputy premier, Jeff Seeney, announced yesterday that the government is opening the expressions of interest process for the casino license and if his words are an indication of what’s to come, there’s going to be no shortage of interested parties vying for the license.
Australian operators Echo Entertainment and Crown Ltd have both expressed interest in competing for the Brisbane spot, which will be included in a nine-hectare redevelopment of the Queens Wharf precinct in Brisbane’s CBD. But Seeney believes that the process is going to be more than just a “two-horse race”.
A lot more.
“Officers from my department did a market sounding and they travelled to Asia, America and New Zealand and spoke to the major operators and there was a significant amount of international interest in what’s happening,” the deputy premier said, as quoted by the Courier Mail.
What that means is that Echo and Crown will likely have some strong competition from a number of international operators. Seeney stopped short of saying the names of the foreign parties, but he did make it emphatically clear for the two Australian firms: there won’t be any home-court advantage here, fellas.
For now, the focus is on creating a process that will be fair for all applicants. A big part of that is determining how these companies can convince Queensland lawmakers on the viability of their proposals, both in the short and long term.
“The first hurdle that any proponent has to get over is to establish that their integrated resort development can compete on the international tourism market, can provide that destination type attraction that is the emerging part of the international tourism market,” Seeney added.
The government has also issued a timeline on how the whole process is going to take shape with interested companies welcome to disclose their interest and make their proposals.
From there, a short list of those who made it past the proverbial first cut is expected to be released by June next year with the winning bid set to be announced sometime in early 2015.
