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Comment by oh_sigh | Hacker News Reader

I lived in Saipan for 3 years (2006-2009). Literally nothing goes on there - an extremely boring, run down place. No way this casino is generating any kind of real earnings. Locals don't have enough money to gamble, and total visitors to all of NMI(which also includes other islands like Tinian and Rota) per year is 500k - twice that many people visit Las Vegas every week.

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The money might be actually be earned elsewhere, but declared to be earned here to avoid Chinese scrutiny / reporting / tax laws.

It is obvious from the article that this is merely a money laundering operation. The feds don't care because it is Chinese money being laundered into the USA and out. The Chinese don't care because it is the people in power (or close to people in power) whose money is usually being laundered.

This is far more likely.

Most people don't even know Saipan exists, much less what goes on there. You'll draw less scrutiny in a middle of nowhere island vs Las Vegas.

Yeah, isn't Saipan in the middle of nowhere? And its not a famous tourist destination like Tahiti.

Saipan used to be very popular with Japanese tourists, because it's only about a 4-hour flight from Tokyo. Then the Japanese economic bubble burst and that dried up.

FWIW, I visited once in 1998, when Japanese tourism was trailing off but hadn't completely collapsed yet, so flights & hotels were cheap. It was a bizarre but largely uninspiring combo of the worst of strip-mall America (McDonaldses, K-Marts) with mass tourism (huge, slowly decaying hotels and beachside hucksters). The snorkeling was OK and the beaches were pretty, but dotted with rusting WW2 tanks...

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