World's Biggest Casino

World's biggest casino set to open in Macau After gaming revenues in Macau overtook those of the Las Vegas Strip last year, Las Vegas Sands is putting its money on the Venetian Macao.
The most ambitious throw of the dice yet in a $24 billion effort to build a Las Vegas-style in this Chinese gambling area.
The hopes of more than a dozen hotel, casino and retail operators building on the "Cotai Strip" - 1.5 square miles of reclaimed land fusing two islands - are pinned on the Venetian Macao, built by U.S. operator Las Vegas Sands Corp. Gaming revenues in Macau, at the southern tip of China, overtook those of the iconic Las Vegas Strip last year, and if the Venetian succeeds, analysts say it will help double that annual income to $13.7 billion by 2010.
Construction delays, funding problems, infrastructure bottlenecks and the risk of an oversupply of both hotel rooms and baccarat tables could threaten such rosy forecasts for the only place in gambling-mad China where casinos are legal.
Macau's past and future But, buoyed by the roaring success in the last couple of years of his first Macau casino - the Sands - Chairman Sheldon Adelson told Reuters the $2.4 billion spent on the Venetian would be recouped within three to five years.
Surrounded by the casino's grand Italian architecture, with marble floors, high arched roofs, frescoes, fountains and gold statues, The Venetian boasts 3,000 hotel suites, 1,150 gaming tables, 7,000 slot machines, 350 shops, an 1,800-seat conference center and a 15,000-seat entertainment arena.
The Macau government and casino operators hope the Cotai Strip will persuade gamblers, mainly from China, to stay a couple of days and spend more money. Many of the 20 million visitors who visit the former Portuguese colony each year do not book into a hotel, preferring to gamble to dawn or visit massage parlors.

Source & image:
usatoday.com
money.cnn.com