Research shows spending on casino ships soaring with organised crime often the beneficiaries, leaving a skewed impression of the business among visitors as expensive Kowloon hub resembles a ghost town
Shady casino cruises to nowhere are raking in record amounts of cash even as Hong Kong’s multibillion-dollar showpiece Kai Tak Cruise Terminal languishes in obscurity facing accusations it is a costly white elephant. Last year average monthly spending on casino ships by Hong Kong gamblers was HK$45,259, constituting a 20-fold increase on the figure for 2012, according to a government-backed study. The amount dwarfs that spent on the gaming tables in neighbouring Macau, which stood at HK$7,938. The data – from a study commissioned by the Ping Wo Fund, which was set up by the government in 2003 to address gambling-related problems – comes as an authoritative internal security report, seen by the, warns that close links between cruise ship operators and organised crime were creating “a net cost” to Hong Kong society. The floundering Kai Tak Cruise Terminal, built at a cost of HK$6.6 billion, was heavily criticised by the Audit Commission last month when it was revealed that four years after its June 2013 opening it resembled a ghost town, with its six-month peak season in 2015 seeing its two berths only occupied for five days. Meanwhile, casino ships packed with Hong Kong and mainland punters, which sail from the city into regulation-free international waters to ply their trade, are using older, more established terminals in Tsim Sha Tsui and Hung Hom, giving rise to a situation in which confused tourists are given the impression cruises entering and leaving the city are dedicated entirely to gambling, according to another officially sanctioned study into Hong Kong’s viability as a regional cruise hub.
