China’s gambling capital battles to shed bad boy image, via the Telegraph
A few Choice Quotes
The old Macau is impossible to miss. It is there in the newspaper stories about people-smuggling gangs luring impoverished women from mainland China into brothels and it is there on the pavements, in the discarded fliers on which bikini-clad “multi-national beauties” offer gamblers 24/7 “tendon relaxing” sessions or “charming massages”.
It is there underneath the Hotel Lisboa, one of Macau’s oldest casino-hotels, in an underground corridor where young prostitutes in bright red lipstick and almost invisible skirts wait for their next clients.
But 12 years on from the start of its gambling boom, Macau is now looking to reduce its dependence on VIP “high rollers” and woo families to take their children to see feel good musicals or ice statues of Shrek and the Kung Fu Panda.
“[The] old Macau is just a gambling place – [now] it is more a family experience,” said Charles Ngai, a PR man for the City of Dreams casino complex.
“Of course it is still a gambling destination but what the government is trying to project is that it is not just gaming any more.”
But with 10 new casinos to open over the coming decade...
When the mainstream press, like the Telegraph, openly discusses Macau's sex industry, money laundering, sex trafficking, and criminality--it's a sign of the times. Things are changing and Macau
as everyone currently knows it is about to change, forever. Macau will go on to turn into a theme-park riddled, family-oriented, sterilized form of itself. Pretty fucking boring place. In the end, it's going appear similar to current day Las Vegas in 2014, not Las Vegas of the 1970's (with the prostitution and such). And don't think it can't happen. Remember what has occurred recently in China with the crackdowns on prostitution, and realize that Macau is a vessel of China, it's not truly autonomous or independent. China calls the shots. What killed the unbridled fun of Las Vegas in the old days were the major corporate conglomerates moving in and Nevada wanting to clean up its image in the 1980's, the commercialization is what killed Las Vegas. When Justin Bieber comes to Macau to play a venue, well... History rhymes, as the saying goes...
Savor and enjoy it all now, because in 5-10 years time, it will all be gone, or mostly gone--starting with the Lisbola Racetrack.