Singapore’s two casino resorts, run by Genting Singapore Plc and Las Vegas Sands Corp., contributed $420 million in net revenue to the city-state in the April to November 2010 period.

The governments’ revenue from the two casinos will be placed in a consolidated fund, Second Finance Minister Lim Hwee Hua said in Parliament today.

 

The two casinos helped Singapore’s gross domestic product expand 14.7% in 2010, Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry S. Iswaran said on Jan. 10. Last year’s economic growth probably made the city of 5 million people the fastest- growing economy in the world after Qatar, according to International Monetary Fund estimates.

 

The casinos opened in Singapore last year after a four- decade ban was lifted to help boost tourism revenue and shed what Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong called an “unexciting image.” In 2002, Lee rejected a proposal for casinos, saying they could lead to “undesirable activities” such as money laundering, illegal lending and organized crime.

 

A total of 31,316 Singaporeans were banned from the casinos under exclusion orders, Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports, said today in Parliament.