HOA TERRY WALDRON MLA MI IS T ER FOR SPORT AND RECREATION; RACING AND GAMING

HONG KONG-MACAU-

FROM

TO

OCTOZ O COMPOSI IO O PARTY

Official Party:

Hon Terry Waldron MLA Minister for Sport and Recreation; Racing and Gaming;

® Mr Richard Burt Chief Executive Officer, Racing and Wagering Western

O Mr Barry Felstead Chief Executive Officer, Burswood Casino

® Mr Ron Alexander Director General, Department of Sport and Recreation (Singapore leg only)

® Mr Jon Nichols Policy Adviser, Racing and Gaming Office of the Minister for Sport and Recreation; Racing and Gaming INTRODUCTION

The port folios of Racing and Gaming and Sport and Recreation incorporate industries and facilities that are important to both the working and social lives of Western Australians.

Our racing, wagering, casino and sporting facilities provide significant business, social and revenue outcomes for our community. But we nolonger operate in a vacuum and it is now more important than ever that weboth understand our competitors and learn from our neighbours.

South East Asia has a history of providing innovation and strong competition and as Minister I consider it important that we in Western Australia areable to measure ourselves against this competition andlearn from their ideas.

With this in mind I visited facilities and spoke to industry leaders inHong Kong, Macau and Singapore.

Hong Kong and Singapore are leaders in the international racing sceneand our interest was centred on visiting theirracing facilities and discussing mutual issues and opportunities associated with racing and race wagering.

In terms of casino tourism, Macau and Singapore lead the world incasino resort development and are major competitors to Burswood Casinoin the international casino tourism business.

Also in Singapore the opportunity was taken to meet with keySingaporean Sports officials and receive a briefing on Sports facilities development.

2 ML c: INGS AND OUTCOMES

Mr Pako Ip, Manager Tracks, Sha Tin Racecourse, Hong Kong Jockey Club

With horse stabling becoming an important issue in Western Australiathe opportunity was taken to tour the on-course stabling facilities at Sha Tin Racecourse. Of value was the work done to provide state-of-the-art stabling accommodation for competitors in Olympic dressage events as part ofthe Beijing Olympic games.

Sha Tin carries one of the heaviest racing schedules in the region and some invaluable insights into the management of grass and synthetic tracks were provided by Sha Tin's Manager Tracks Mr Pako 1p.

Mr Henry Chan, Executive Director Betting, Mr Bill Nader, Executive Director Racing, Mr Bobby Chang, Head of Betting Services and Marketing, Hong Kong Jockey Club

In addition to discussing racing operations in Hong Kong, I and membersof my group had a very open and useful discussionwith senior executives of the Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC).

Hong Kong, through the HKJC, operates some of the largest bettingpools in the world and has traditionally not opened its operations tointernational partners.

It is desirable to understand Hong Kong's attitude to opening its pools to commingling and the Hong Kong Governments attitude towards taxation exemptions for international partners.

The meeting was used as a forum to explore competitive threats andopportunities for Western Australia as we seek to make mark in the South East Asianwagering market.

The meeting produced a very worthwhile exchange of views andinformation and some important commitments were secured.

My thanks go to Henry Chan, bill Nader and Bobby Chang for their warmreception, open dialogue and kind hospitality

3 Mr Greg Hawkins, President, City of Dreams Casino, Macau Mr Stuart Kerr, Policy and Visits Officer, AustralianConsulate-General, Hong Kong

Burswood Casino provides the state with an important revenue stream inthe form of inbound international tourism. An important part of Burswood Casino's business is its ability to attract high value international playersknown as junket business. Junket business is highly lucrative and intensely competitive.

From a revenue perspective, Burswood's junket business contributescasino tax to the State Government of around $15m annually together withflow-on employment and tourism benefits.

Two new recently opened casinos in Singapore, together with the emergence of Macau as a major casino destination, has established considerable competition for Burswood. It is important to gain an understanding of the nature of this competition.

In Macau I met with Mr Greg Hawkins, president of the City of DreamsCasino.

Mr Hawkins explained that the Casino industry in Macau principallytargeted the Chinese market and that the Macau now surpasses Las Vegas in termsof gambling spend. There are now in excess of 30 major casino in Macau and the challenge for Macau casinos is to stay at the peak of the market in termsof entertainment value.

Mr Hawkins accompanied my party on a tour of the oldest and newest casinos in Macau and it was very evident to me that success in such a competitive market was dependent upon providing an attractive integrated resort rather than simply building a casino. This approach requires substantial amountsof capital and clever innovation.

Mr Kenneth HuiChief Infrastructure Development, Mr Yazes OsmanDeputy Director Sports Hub, Singapore Sports Council

Mr Kenneth Hui and Mr Yazes Osman made a presentation onSingapore's Sports Hub Project. The presentation outlined the Objective of the SportsHub as being to: provide Singaporeans with 3 key thingsa premier land and sea sports complex, entertainment and a lifestyle hub, encourage the population to take up Sport and makeit an intrinsic part of their lifestyle, attract International events to the Centre,

4 develop elite athletes, provide Singaporeans with low-cost hassle-free access to the complex.

The construction and future management of the project is to be handled under the public-private partnership (PPP) model. This is the World's largest sport facility project built under a PPP and is Singapore's flagship PPP of this nature.

A 35 ha site in , central Singapore has been chosen. It is integrated with Marina Bay floating stadium, the Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resort, Marina Barrage and Singapore Flyer.

The key elements of this complex are: a new 55,000 seat National Stadium with a retractable seating and roof for use by oval and rectangular sports, i.e: athletics, cricket, soccer and rugby a 6,000 seat Indoor aquatic centre meeting FINA requirements a 3,000 seat multi-purpose arena with a flexible and scalable layout 41,000 m2 of commercial space to support capital cost a water sports centre integration of the existing 11,000 seat Indoor Stadium and supporting leisure and commercial developments a new Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) network station connecting it aswell as a major highway linking for example Changi Airport to it within 15 minutes.

The Singapore Sports Council offered to make all their plans and planning documentation available to us upon request.

Mr Chris Chan, Secretary-General, Singapore National Olympic Committee

My delegation met Mr Chris Chan, Secretary General of the Singapore National Olympic Committee (SNOC). The SNOC is autonomous and is the peak non- Government sporting body providing a link between all Singapore's National Sports Federations and the International Olympic Committee.

Mr Chan accompanied my group on an inspection of the Marina Bay floating football stadium. The floating stadium was the venue for the opening of the World's first Youth Olympic Games. It is also used for other cultural and entertainment events including the National Day parade and fireworks display. It has a 30,000 seat grandstand and a large corporate viewing box. The float is on 15 interlocking pontoons stabilised by 6 pylons sunk in the ocean bed and is able to rise and fall with tidal movements. Three stable gangways link the float to the mainland

5 Mr Teo Kim Heng, Vice President for Sales and Business Development, Singapore Turf Club

The Singapore Turf Club operates out of Racecourse, one of the most recent racecourse development in the region.

The club is a leader in racecourse technology being at the forefront of night racing and synthetic racing surfaces.

My group took the opportunity to attend a night race meeting at Kranji as guests of Mr Teo Kim Heng and some important discussions on race broadcast and pooling opportunities took place during a very enjoyable evening at an excellent racing facility.

Mr T Raja Kumar, Chief Executive, Mr Harold Gan: Deputy Director, Planning & Policy, Singapore Casino Regulatory Authority

To further explore the issue of competition in the international casino tourism market, I met with Mr T Raja Kumar, Chief Executive of the Singapore Casino Regulatory Authority.

It was interesting to note that Singapore has only recently entered the casino market with the development of two new casino and that western Australia had contributed significantly to the development of Singapore's regulatory model.

With the assistance of Mr Kumar my group toured these two new developments being the Marina Bay Sands Casino and Resorts World Sentosa Casino.

The size and scale of these developments is enormous and again the focus is on integrated resorts with diversity of entertainment options.

6