Australia's Crown Resorts buys site on Las Vegas strip

Australian gaming mogul James Packer is taking another crack at the lucrative US casino market, with his Crown Resorts buying a vacant site on the famous Las Vegas Strip.

Crown has established a joint-venture resort company to develop the site with former Wynn Las Vegas president Andrew Pascal, with financial backing from US private equity firm Oaktree Capital Management.

“You can’t be in the gaming industry and not have a special reverence for Las Vegas - that’s where it all began,” Packer said in a statement. “As we have built Crown Resorts into a thriving international company with successful casino ventures in Australia, Macau, and London, we’ve always kept our eye on Las Vegas.”

Packer scrapped plans to develop a US$5 billion casino in Las Vegas with private equity partner York Capital Management in 2008 as the global financial crisis crunched the credit market, with Crown writing off A$44 million (HK$317 million) in the process.

Crown also lost money on investments in US casino firms Fontainebleau Resorts and Cannery Resorts.