Singaporeans gambled ‘til they dropped

Singaporeans gambled ‘til they dropped, then slept on the floor, then gambled some more, to maximise their 24 hours under the $100 levy system.

Yesterday we brought you our eye witness report on the opening weekend of Resorts World at Sentosa.

Today, we have another picture of what things were like inside the gaming halls. One key thing was that some Singaporeans, who can only stay in the Casino for 24 hours after paying a $100 levy, decided to take a quick nap between gambling to sleep on the floors of the Casino before presumably waking up to try their luck again. Reports from inside the halls suggested that up to 60 percent of those able to get in were locals, and the remainder were foreigners mainly form Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.

This is certainly at odds with what your correspondent saw during the long queues, but could be due to the fact that the clearance for Singaporeans may be much faster. Also perhaps the Malaysians and Thais and Indonesians came on junket tours in which case we presume they did not have to queue. We also noted that we didn’t see a single Malaysian plated car in the car park on the Opening Weekend Sunday, but our sources tell us that Genting is running massive bus junket trips from Malaysia with a stop at a Genting controlled shopping mall in JB before being bussed directly to the Casino.

Again, presumably those on the junket did not have to queue like the regular foreigners. According to a CLSA report, the “VIP area was quieter”. This would tie in with what we saw in the car park which was the VIP parking area was largely empty. Maybe the whales are staying away for now. The slot machines were also well patronised but so far we have no reports on how the tables went.