Taiwan Islands Ready For Gambling

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- The prospects for a beachfront casino resort in Taiwan that would be managed by Las Vegas casino veteran Larry Woolf received a boost.

Taiwan's Parliament voted last week
Taiwan Resorts Approved For Gambling  to legalize gambling on the island nation's offshore islands of Kinmen, Matsu and Penghu. The move allows the local governments to hold casino referendums.

Woolf, chief executive officer of the Navegante Group casino management company, is a director of Amz Holdings, which controls a 27-acre beachfront parcel on Penghu where a resort and casino complex has been designed. Woolf's group has spent some four years putting together the parcel and making plans for the development in anticipation that Taiwan would authorize gaming.

"The decision now places the company well ahead of any other operator without land on the island, in a large new market which is untapped and ideally positioned with developing links to China," Woolf said.

He may have competition.

Lawrence Ho, the son of Macau casino kingpin Stanley Ho and the CEO of Melco Crown Entertainment, is looking for his own piece of the Taiwanese action.

He told AFP news service he would like to expand into Taiwan, but only if it didn't upset the government of Mainland China, which claims sovereignty over Taiwan.

"Our relationship with China is key to us, we wouldn't want to do something to piss them off," Lawrence Ho said.

Melco Crown is a Nasdaq-listed joint venture with Australian billionaire James Packer. It owns one of Macau's six gambling licenses. Melco operates the Crown Macau and is opening the $2.1 billion City of Dreams on the Cotai Strip this year.