Hollywood-themed resort opens in Macau: Studio City offers family fun, launch features star-studded cast of De Niro, Scorsese and DiCaprio

Macau’s bid to reinvent itself as a mass-market, family-orientated gaming destination was underlined yesterday as its latest multi-million casino resort opened with a combination of Hollywood glamour and a bold statement of intent.

Movie directing icon Martin Scorsese lined up with living screen legends Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio as Melco Crown’s HK$3.2 billion Studio City development went live with the promise of tinseltown-tinged entertainment and – in a first for the world’s premier gaming hub – a casino floor with no VIP tables in sight.

Underlining that shift is the fact that Studio City on the Cotai Strip is the first major development in Macau not to target VIP gamblers, amid a 16-month straight slump in gaming revenues and Beijing’s crackdown on corruption – which has scared mainland Chinese high rollers away.

The shift also reflects a collapse of the junket system in Macau, which has seen a number of operators – whose main role has been to recruit high rollers to casinos and make loans – either shrink or close down completely in the face of looming greater regulation and falling revenues. The move towards the mass market model was further emphasised by Melco Crown’s gaming table count, Studio City is opening with just over half the 400 tables it initially requested from gaming regulators.

An upbeat Ho, however, predicted a bright future as infrastructure linking the former Portuguese enclave to Zhuhai and Hong Kong coems online: “250 tables is a no-brainer for us… We are where we are and we are happy,” said the son of Macau’s octogenarian casino pioneer Stanley Ho Hung-sun.