Casino billionaire Francis Lui fakes confused as he poses for a picture behind a mountain of chips at the table control typically reserved for high rollers who bet as much as $ 250,000.
"You want me to smile or poker-faced?" he says with a laugh that baritone echoes his wood-paneled Penthouse Suite of Chinese gambling enclave StarWorld Casino of Macao.
And by passing a host on split thigh cheongsams, bespectacled and conservative attire, Lui, 55, has a lot to smile about. The Galaxy Entertainment Group controlled by his family holds one of six licenses to operate a casino in the biggest casino on Earth.
Macau, a former Portuguese colony on the South China that is half the size of Manhattan, the only place in the world's most populous country with 1.3 billion Chinese are allowed to gamble in the Casino.
Revenue in casinos, 37 kilometers south of Hong Kong, soared 58 percent to $ 23.5 billion last year--more than quadruple the 5.8 billion bet on Las Vegas, according to statistics collected by the two jurisdictions.
The rise in the stock price of Galaxy listed Hong Kong is impressive. As of March 8, the stock had tripled to HK $ 10.92 from HK $ 3.21 in early 2010. The shares have outperformed those of rivals such as Sheldon Adelson's Las Vegas Sands and Steve Wynn Wynn Hotel, the Australian billionaire James Packer Melco Crown entertainment and SJM holdings of Stanley HO.
On 10 March, the Lui announced the opening of the spring emergence. 1.9 billion Macau Galaxy resort, 2,200 will feature five subfields of games with a combined floor space equivalent to three football fields; Three hotels; 50 restaurants; Palm Beach, with 350 tons of white sand imported from neighbouring Guangdong Province, lapped by artificial waves.
Meanwhile, Macau's dominant figure may be fading in gaming in the last century. 24 January, HO, 89, appeared to give control of the company, which operates 20 casinos in Macao for 33. SJM Hong Kong Exchange message o ran his family company shares in Lanceford relatives, effectively relinquishing ownership of Sociedade de Turismo e Diversoes de Macau, the company which controls SJM.
Two days later, Hu, who gave birth to 17 children by four women he calls his "wives", filed a lawsuit claiming that the two women and five had illegally grabbed control of its assets. O withdrew the lawsuit March 10, says his legal dispute with family members was resolved. The announcement drove stock prices SJM, which has lost more than 7 percent or so within weeks.
Like the o chills, the levy family, whose five casinos account for 12.5 percent of Macau's gaming revenues, is betting that it can extend its winning run. Lewis has a record of defying the odds. Chairman and founder Lui Che-woo, 81, arrived in Hong Kong in 1934 as a refugee aged 4 ravaged mainland China. Francis Lui says that at the age of 13, his father was helping support his family by selling food on the streets of British colony before making his first pot of gold trading war surplus equipment and then moving into the construction, property and hospitality.
Today, with three sons, two daughters, Lui Che Woo multinational Empire dominates including hotels in the United States, office towers, quarries in Hong Kong and Macau Casinos. Although Francis Lui refuses to discuss her family's wealth, holdings holdings Galaxy and K Wah International alone are estimated at 3.5 billion.
Success with a new venture is not a one-way bet. Macau, like Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, Casino revenues surging hinges on Government policy in Beijing, which controls the movement of people across the border.