Inside Asian Gaming

IAG JAPAN JUN 2020 32 A public memorial for Dr Ho was opened at Hotel Lisboa. ホテルリスボアでホー博士の記念ディスプレイが公開された COVER STORY planning to invest hundreds of millions of dollars. “We know our customers,” he reassured anyone who suggested the neophytes weren’t crazy. Witnesses say Ho’s jaw dropped when he saw Sands Macao’s casino floor on its May 2004 opening night. At an emergency staff meeting, he appealed to Chinese pride, urging executives not to let foreigners outdo them. Announced just after the Sands opening, Grand Lisboa, adjacent to the original Lisboa, opened in February 2007, though hotel rooms occupying the upper 40-something floors of Macau’s tallest building weren’t available until December 2008. It proved an effective response at a fraction of the cost of new rivals’ properties, but it wasn’t Ho’s only move. In February 2008, Ponte 16 opened at the Inner Harbor pier formerly receiving Hong Kong overnight steamers. Ponte 16, 49% owned by junket promoter Success Universe, was close to Macau’s historic center, leveraging the peninsula’s advantage over landfill Cotai. STDM also proposed Oceanus, a US$1 billion icon for the Outer Harbor, Shun Tak’s Hong Kong ferries hub. Resembling a massive ship’s prow, Oceanus would rise over 40 stories, flanked by Macau’s tallest skyscraper, its largest retail mall, offices, apartments, casino-hotel and an STDM-run replacement ferry terminal. When Chief Executive Ho announced casino development restraints in early 2008, foreshadowing Beijing’s visa restrictions, STDM abandoned the scheme. Today’s Oceanus, evoking Beijing’s 2008 Olympic Water Cube, is a HK$194 million remnant of the original plan. A global design competition to replace the original Lisboa – Stanley Ho and Edmund Ho reviewed entries exhibited at Lisboa in September 2008 – was dropped when global financial markets collapsed days later. Ho didn’t let his ego override financial prudence.