Las Vegas Sands Corp., the casino company of billionaire Sheldon Adelson, expects 90% of its revenue to come from Asia by 2020, as its Singapore resort ramps up and more of China’s gamblers visit Macau.

“I don’t think there was a recession in this part of the world, and therefore that didn’t affect gaming very much,” Adelson said in an interview while in Singapore for the Marina Bay Sands resort’s grand opening. “We hope that 90% of our income comes from Asia” within 10 years, he said.

 

Asia accounted for about 73% of the company’s revenue at the end of last year. The casino operator is investing US$5.5 billion ($7.62 billion) in the Marina Bay Sands complex, a bet that economic growth in China and the region will boost demand for shopping, entertainment, gambling and tourism. Singapore has said the resort will help the city lure 17 million visitors and triple annual tourism revenue to $30 billion by 2015.

 

Marina Bay Sands’ second phase, which includes a sky park and 160 meter-long swimming pool atop three 55-floor hotel towers, opens this week. The casino, some convention facilities, shops and restaurants opened in late April. The island nation’s other casino, Genting Bhd.’s US$4.7 billion Resorts World Sentosa development, which includes a Universal Studios theme park, opened in February.

 

“I think Marina Bay Sands will do very well, and has the potential do to better than Resorts World Sentosa,” Edward Ong, a Kuala Lumpur-based gaming analyst with Macquarie Securities Ltd., said in a phone interview today. “If Marina Bay Sands can bring in VIPs from mainland China they could be looking at record-breaking numbers because that’s a very lucrative base.”

 

Adelson, in a Bloomberg Television interview, said gambling and tourism have recovered in Macau and in Las Vegas after the global credit crisis slashed demand in 2008. He said at a media briefing in Singapore today that Las Vegas Sands was interested in opening a casino in South Korea, and had explored developing a Las Vegas-style strip complete with luxury hotels and spas in either Italy, Greece or Spain. In December, he said the company was “actively looking” at projects in Japan, Taiwan and India.

 

Casino gambling revenue in Macau, the world’s biggest gambling hub, almost doubled last month, according to a person familiar with the matter. Adelson said today the primary feeder markets for Marina Bay Sands would be Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, rather than China.

 

Gambling revenue for Macau’s casinos in May rose to 17 billion patacas ($2.94 billion) from 8.8 billion patacas a year earlier, according to the person, who requested anonymity because the data isn’t public. The total for the five months through May rose to about 72 billion patacas from 43 billion patacas a year earlier, the person said.

 

Las Vegas Sands’ Venetian Macao gets about 40,000 visitors to its shopping malls during the week and about 65,000 on weekends, Adelson said. Visitors to Marina Bay Sands’ shops should be “more than twice as many” within the same timeframe, Adelson said.

 

The Venetian Macao opened on Macau’s Cotai strip in August 2007. Macau surpassed Las Vegas as the world’s biggest gambling center in 2006.

 

Marina Bay Sands is forecast to generate earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization of US$329 million in 2010, based on the average of 13 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. The casino attracted close to 500,000 visitors this month, Thomas Arasi, the resort’s chief executive, said at a press conference in Singapore today.

 

Las Vegas Sands on June 3 estimated it will generate as much as US$3 billion in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization in 2011. The company’s majority- owned Chinese unit may generate US$1 billion to US$1.2 billion in 2010, it said in a June 3 regulatory filing.

 

The company’s U.S. gambling business is also recovering, Adelson said.

 

“Las Vegas got hit pretty hard during the recession and wasn’t helped by President Obama saying we don’t want companies who use debt to pay us money to bail out their balance sheets to go to Las Vegas for the Super Bowl,” he said. “But now we have a big automobile company that received a lot of money from the government, who’s going to have a very big event in our property in Vegas.”

 

As much as 50% of the company’s Las Vegas hotel bookings come from conferences and exhibitions that are sometimes organized years in advance.

 

Gaming in Las Vegas should return to pre-crisis levels within two years, Adelson said.

 

“It’s not a case of optimism, but listening to our customers and seeing the bookings in our hotel that are more vibrant than they were before,” he said. Gaming activity in Las Vegas will return to “80% plus” of pre-crisis levels in 2011 and “probably about 100% in 2012.”

 

The company’s new Singapore property has surmounted some of the problems that led to complaints at its opening in April, Adelson said.

 

The Marina Bay Sands resort sued the organizers of the first conference it hosted after payment was withheld following a power failure. The Walt Disney Co. musical “The Lion King” has been delayed because the building isn’t ready. The stage show will open in the first quarter of 2011, Adelson said today.

 

Adelson also said opening glitches were “normal” and early visitor numbers at Marina Bay Sands are “more than sustainable.” About 550,000 people visited the casino in the first 25 days of May with two-thirds either tourists or foreigners living in Singapore, and one-third Singaporeans, who pay a $100 government fee to enter.