Elsewhere in the region, casinos are just emerging from a long period of stigmatization on social and moral grounds. South Korea's first casino for the country's own people, in a remote mining area, has been an embarrassing success. Pressure is now on from the country's other 13 casinos to be opened to nationals, in particular the Walker Hill facility outside Seoul. India's first-ever casino opened in January on a ship anchored off the coast of the western state of Goa. That is expected to cut into the profits of the handful of casinos operating in Nepal that service gamblers from the Subcontinent through accounts based in India.
Many places still retain outright bans on casinos.
But they are usually honoured in the breach. Burma has several border casinos serving Thais and Chinese. Industry insiders say they expect the country's first legal casinos to open in 2005. The great holdouts are predictably the biggest exporters of casino betters. Hong Kong's financial secretary, Donald Tsang, proposed a local casino after he visited Las Vegas in 1999, but the idea was shot down like a clay pigeon.