It may seem like a statement of the obvious to say that casino developers in Macau mainly build casinos - if only it were true.
For the first time, the balance of the mega-resorts being built in the territory will devote more floor space to shopping centres than to casinos.
To date, four companies - Galaxy Entertainment, Las Vegas Sands Corp, Melco PBL Entertainment and the consortium behind Macao Studio City - have announced plans for Cotai Strip projects totalling 33 branded hotels that represent almost 30,000 rooms.
The plans call for casino space equal to 3.24 million square feet of gross floor area. But larger by far is the 5.51 million sqft of retail space attached to these resorts - about eight times the size of Pacific Place.
In short, the world's largest gaming companies plan to flood the world's largest gaming market with more new shops than new casino space. All this for a city that, despite a 33 per cent surge, booked only 14.19 billion patacas in retail sales last year, compared with HK$247.69 billion in Hong Kong.
Success will require a dramatic shift in spending patterns. Excluding gambling, visitors to Macau spent 1,714 patacas per capita in the three months to December last year. Only 37 per cent of that spending went towards shopping, where local food products accounted for 32 per cent of purchases by value.
Compare that with Hong Kong, where overnight visitors spent HK$4,799 and same-day visitors spent HK$1,015 on a per-capita basis in 2006, the latest period for which figures are available. Shopping accounted for 53.2 per cent of spending by overnight visitors and 85.5 per cent of purchases by day-trippers.