Las Vegas Sands is not going to open casino in North Korea

US casino operator Las Vegas Sands denied the reports that it is going to start a gaming venue in North Korea.

It was reported earlier that the company is planning a North Korean venture. Sheldon Adelson, the company boss, hinted in meeting in Jerusalem, where he was born, that the recent dialogue between the US and North Korean governments could pave the path to open business opportunities in Korea. These are his exact words:

“I wasn’t born here. I wasn’t raised here, I didn’t serve in the army here. I did serve in the United States Army. I’m a veteran of the Korean War. Actually, I hope Trump gets North and South Korea to finish the war. I feel as though I might be called back up. I fight enough. I don’t want to go back to Korea to fight. I want to go back to Korea to open up my business.”

Numerous gaming media outlets have since claimed that Adelson was referencing Sands’ ambition to establish a North Korean casino.

You will notice that Adelson’s comments above do not specify which Korea he’s eyeing for planting his casino flag. And while North Korean leader Kim Jong-un may have toured Sands’ Singapore property Marina Bay Sands ahead of his summit with US President Donald Trump – and Adelson has an on-again/off-again relationship with Trump – Adelson is a savvy businessman whose history offers no evidence of the recklessness that would be required to invest the millions (or billions) in a jurisdiction as volatile as North Korea.

Sands has repeatedly expressed interest in establishing a South Korean casino property, specifically floating plans for resorts in Incheon and Busan. However, Sands stipulated that it would not build in South Korea unless the company relaxed its ban on local residents entering the vast majority of the nation’s existing casinos.

Since North Korea’s alleged casino plans specifically refer to an international tourist zone, it is extremely dubious that Sands would be willing to relax its local’s requirement for the North when it would not do so in the South’s far more stable legal climate.

So, while it makes for a good headline, the idea of Sands establishing a North Korean casino is about as likely as Kim Jong-un and Trump wife-swapping to celebrate the de-nuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.

Source: CalvinAyre.com