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Comment by redeux | Hacker News Reader

I thought they were talking about Las Vegas until I read the article. I wonder if that was the intention when they titled the article.

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I think you might be imposing an America-centric view on the BBC. I doubt that was the intention.

That’s fair, which is why I questioned whether that was the case rather than outright making the claim. You’re probably right.

It does describe Las Vegas perfectly, and I sincerely doubt your first thought after reading that headline was "its a British publication, so of course they mean that city in Myanmar."

I did, because I also followed the Chinese actor kidnapping story from the Thai publications and know about the magical place across the river and it's history. South East Asia is historically fascinating. It's worth reading Burman diaries to put later writings of Orwell into some context.

I am not British, I am French, and when I think about a city with casinos, that's definitely Las Vegas, and I think that it would be even more true for the British, who have more ties to the US than the French.

And yes, more Las Vegas than Monaco, even though it is a 2 hour drive from where I live. Monaco is not famous for casinos (plural), it is famous for one particular casino, that is the Monte-Carlo casino.

And if they specified Asia, Macao would have popped up in my mind. As for the "fraud" part, casinos and fraud go well together, at least in popular culture. Which is a bit ironic considering that apparently, the scam businesses took over as casinos closed down during the COVID-19 pandemic.

> And if they specified Asia, Macao would have popped up in my mind

The Xi Admin cracked down on Macau around the 2016-18 period as part of the larger crackdown.

It was during this time that most of the gambling (in reality money laundering) operations moved abroad to Phillipines, Cambodia, Myanmar, etc.

Koh Kong also comes to mind.

Las Vegas is not the only city with casinos.

No, but it's probably the most famous (at worst, second behind Monte Carlo).

Monte Carlo isn't a city. It's a casino named after the Monaco neighbourhood where it's located:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Carlo_Casino

It's the same kind of administrative division as Monaco City. It's where the Grand Prix is announced as being held. Las Vegas is also legally a subset of the metropolitan area that it's part of. Americans do call the thing that Las Vegas is a "city" and do not call the thing that Monte Carlo is a "city", but this seems more like a translation artifact than any real difference.

Monte Carlo has a population of 3,500 people and is entirely contiguous with the rest of Monaco-the-city. I'm not sure anyone would consider it a city in itself.

Shrug. Within a factor of 3 or so of the City of London. I'm sure there are other examples. Administrative districts are weird.

Las Vegas is an insignificant mote of dust compared to Macau when it comes to Casinos and gambling.

wow you're not kidding! looked this up and revenues are somewhere like 10x-20x of macau compared to vegas. That's pretty nuts, didn't realize there was that big of a gap

I thought it was common knowledge that Asians love to gamble?

AIUI gambling is still pretty much entirely illegal in mainland China, so it pretty much has a captive market of 1.5bn people. Vegas has a much smaller _obligate_ market; gambling's far more (legally) available in the US than in China.

Like, if you like on the American east coast, and enjoy gambling, Vegas may be a place that you'd like to go, but you have other closer options.

Vegas was much bigger before Indian casinos and others too off. It used to be Atlantic City and Vegas, and the name lives on even if the reality has changed.

Vegas has definitely pivoted more into showbiz and entertainment.

Macao has not only China but is a quick flight for most of the world's population, particularly NE and SE Asia, and most importantly most people are not residents of Macao. In East Asia, where gambling is allowed it's usually not permitted for the residents of the country (e.g. Singapore)

???

singaporeans are definitely not "not permitted" to gamble.

i suspect you mean the thing with the casinos. singaporeans can enter, though they have to pay an extra fee. and besides the casinos, singaporeans also bet on 4d, toto and football in betting shops all over the island.

No, Macau is. It's Western media bias that we talk about LV way more than Macau. (Also, LV still has the English-language entertainment acts, conventions, conferences.)

But for gambling revenue, Las Vegas was passed out by Macau back in 2007 already: https://www.reuters.com/article/macau-revenues/the-worlds-ca...

Macau in 2007 was way more about money laundering than Las Vegas. Do you have more recent numbers? After Xi’s crackdown, I’d expect their gambling revenue to go down by a lot.

Article [0] and graph [1] FT citing Bloomberg, UNLV says Macau gambling revenues outstrip LV every year 2007-2020 except 2009 (recession); even with the huge Covid drop in 2020.

And [2] second graph says "Macau [Gross gaming revenue ($bn)] has regained lead from Las Vegas as world’s top gaming hub" in 2023; LV was briefly > Macau for the three years 2020-2022. (Also shows visitor arrivals from mainland China recovered since 1/2023).

Yes, even post-Chinese crackdowns (2012- ongoing, and also in 2021) on corruption.

[0]: https://www.ft.com/content/417f2513-37b2-4900-ac36-4729df36a...

[1]: graph 3 from that FT article https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/htt...

[]: FT 3/2024 "Macau roars back as gamblers return to ‘Las Vegas of the east’" https://www.ft.com/content/918d868a-e862-45e0-9072-e79461159...

Nice to know, thanks for delivering the refs. It lost to LV during COVID, but bounced back afterwards, which makes sense.

I've never been to Macau before although I've been to HK a few times. The only time I've seen a Chinese casino was in Manilla (near T3 of the airport), and I'm almost positive that one at least, was related to money laundering.

Interesting, my first thought was Macao

It describes, to a greater or lesser extent, a lot of places, but this one is certainly a particularly extreme example.

>Jonathan Head

>South East Asia correspondent

>Reporting from Shwe Kokko, Myanmar

Before the article even started.

Yep. I fell for clickbait, again.

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