Casino Night

We enjoyed a long weekend last week due to Singapore celebrating its National Day. We decided it was time to head to the Resorts World Casino on Sentosa and check out the action, or lack thereof, at the new attraction. Singapore’s first casino opened back in February, but based on feedback from other expats who had gone there, we opted to wait a few months for them to work out the kinks before we tried it. It was definitely a different experience than Las Vegas.

We ate dinner at a Cajun restaurant that I won’t need to visit again and then we walked around the integrated resort before descending below ground to the casino. I think I mentioned before that it was a big deal for Singapore to legalize gambling. After all, it is a country where sinful behavior is generally outlawed or taxed to the highest degree. Even the network TV shows from the US are censored here. 

So the government’s plan for legalized gambling allows foreign passport holders to enter the casino for free and lose as much money as they like. Singaporean citizens and permanent residents must pay S$100 entrance fee for the casino. They also offer a year pass for something like S$2,000. Additionally, anyone receiving government assistance is banned from the casino, and family members can apply to have a loved one outlawed due to gambling addiction. Our taxi driver told us the government had collected S$70 million in entrance fees alone in the first 3 months of operation. Not a bad investment for the government!

We worried the holiday weekend would make the casino busier than usual but it was easy to get around. It was definitely crowded but very quiet compared to a US casino. There were plenty of slot machines, including penny slots. I found this funny because there are no pennies in circulation here so how could players collect their exact winnings? The smallest coin is 5 cents.

Among the table games, Baccarat was definitely the most popular. I don’t understand that game and watching for a few minutes did nothing to help me out. Blackjack was also popular, with a minimum bid of S$25 per hand. We saw some Roulette tables and a game called Tai Sai, which to me resembled a combination of Craps and Roulette. People were betting on dice like Craps but the dice were placed under a glass dome, covered with a brass lid and electronically shaken instead. It was amusing to watch. What was noticeably missing was a traditional Craps table. This was probably good news for the Dean finances because that game has the greatest potential for cleaning out Brian’s pockets.

Walking around the casino seeing all kinds of games I had never heard of before was like going to the wet market for the first time and being amazed by all the fruits I had never encountered in the US. It’s that American arrogance that leads to me believe that Las Vegas has all the gambling options known to mankind. Now I know different. Spotting 5 Lamborghinis parked in a row outside the casino reminded me of Monte Carlo though. It’s an impressive show of wealth when one considers a car costs about 3 times as much in Singapore as it does in America. Those drivers probably weren't playing the penny slots.

Unfortunately, no free cocktails are given to the gamblers, which is likely a big reason the place isn’t more crowded with expats. By the end of the evening, Brian lost a mere S$50 on the Wheel of Fortune slot machine that I persuaded him to play just for fun. We enjoyed our evening down there and while I don’t imagine we’ll visit the casino often, I didn’t find it as dull as other people reported. It was gambling, Asian style.