Las Vegas Sands Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson speaks at a news conference for the Sands Cotai Central in Macau Wednesday, April 12, 2012. U.S. billionaire Adelson's Macau casino operator launched on Wednesday its long-delayed fourth resort, a $4.4-billion complex that's the company's latest bet on continued strong growth in the world's biggest gambling market. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Las Vegas Sands Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson speaks at a news conference for the Sands Cotai Central in Macau Wednesday, April 12, 2012. U.S. billionaire Adelson's Macau casino operator launched on Wednesday its long-delayed fourth resort, a $4.4-billion complex that's the company's latest bet on continued strong growth in the world's biggest gambling market. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
From left, President and CEO of Sands China Ltd. Edward Tracy, Las Vegas Sands Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson, and President and Chief Operation Officer Michael Leven speak at a news conference for the Sands Cotai Central in Macau Wednesday, April 12, 2012. U.S. billionaire Adelson's Macau casino operator launched on Wednesday its long-delayed fourth resort, a $4.4-billion complex that's the company's latest bet on continued strong growth in the world's biggest gambling market. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Las Vegas Sands Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson, second right, and his wife Miriam Ochsorn stand in front of a model of the Sands Cotai Central during a news conference in Macau Wednesday, April 12, 2012. U.S. billionaire Adelson's Macau casino operator launched on Wednesday its long-delayed fourth resort, a $4.4-billion complex that's the company's latest bet on continued strong growth in the world's biggest gambling market. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Las Vegas Sands Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson, right, and his wife Miriam Ochsorn stand in front of a model of the Sands Cotai Central during a news conference in Macau Wednesday, April 12, 2012. U.S. billionaire Adelson's Macau casino operator launched on Wednesday its long-delayed fourth resort, a $4.4-billion complex that's the company's latest bet on continued strong growth in the world's biggest gambling market. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
MACAU (AP) ? U.S. billionaire Sheldon Adelson's Macau casino operator is launching its long-delayed fourth resort, a $4.4 billion complex that is its latest bet on continued strong growth in the world's biggest gambling market.
Sands China Ltd. was set to open the doors later Wednesday to the Sands Cotai Central with a high-wire tightrope performance and the unveiling of a 2,500 kilogram (5,500 pound) bronze and gold "God of Fortune" statue. Completion was delayed several years by the global financial crisis and worker shortages.
The resort will open in stages, with the first phase featuring 340 gaming tables and 40 VIP rooms for high-rollers. Another 200 tables will be added later this year.
It's the 35th casino to open in Macau, the only place in China where casino gambling is legal. Macau's gambling revenues rose 27 percent in the first three months of 2012, after rocketing 42 percent last year to $33.5 billion, more than five times the amount earned by Las Vegas Strip casinos. Growth has been powered by hordes of wealthy high-rolling gamblers from mainland China, who are estimated to account for more than two-thirds of total gambling revenue.
No more new casinos are expected to open until at least 2015 because of the time needed for government approval and construction.
Sands China's next project will be a 3,600-room resort on a nearby plot for which it is currently seeking planning approval, said Adelson, chairman of both Sands China and U.S.-based parent Las Vegas Sands Corp.
"We hope to move some dirt around, (do some) compacting of the earth, and put in pilings by the end of this year," said Adelson. Construction would take 24 to 30 months, he said.
Sands' rivals in Macau, including Wynn Resorts Ltd. and MGM Resorts International, are also planning Cotai expansion projects but are waiting for government approval.
"The Cotai Central opening will fuel increased market share for Sands because it will be the last major opening in Macau for the next couple of years," said Michael Paladino, an analyst at Fitch Ratings.
Sands is expected to benefit from growing numbers of middle-class visitors drawn to shopping and other non-gambling attractions at Cotai's resorts. New transportation links to mainland China and Hong Kong, an hour away by ferry, will also help boost the so-called mass market, analysts said.
The new resort's Holiday Inn, Sheraton and Conrad hotels will have a total of 5,800 rooms when they are fully open by next year. A fourth hotel tower is in the planning stages that will cost $500 million to $600 million, bringing total cost to $5 billion, Adelson said at a press conference ahead of the launch.
Construction on the project began five years ago but was frozen temporarily in late 2008 after financing dried up in the wake of the financial crisis. Government restrictions on foreign workers also helped push back the opening date by three years, Adelson said.
Macau was a Portuguese colony for more than a century before it was returned to China in 1999. In 2002, the government ended a 40-year gambling monopoly, opening the way for foreign operators to enter. The ensuing casino boom has transformed the city on the southern edge of China from a sleepy former colonial outpost into a glitzy and bustling tourist destination.
The wealthy mainland Chinese gamblers visiting Macau typically play in private rooms with money borrowed from so-called "junket operators," who arrange gambling trips for high-rollers and collect debts when they return home. Revenue from Hong Kong-listed Sands China accounted for half of parent company Las Vegas Sands Corp.'s $9.4 billion revenue in 2011.
The new casino is located on the Cotai Strip, an area of reclaimed swampland that combines the names of the two islands that it connects, Coloane and Taipa. Paintings of snowcapped peaks on the casino floor and fake boulders in the shopping mall are aimed at evoking a Himalayan mountain theme. Across the street are two other Sands developments, the Venetian Macao and Plaza Macao.
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Follow Kelvin Chan at twitter.com/chanman
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