Casinos in Macau up 46 Percent
Macau -Â the only place in China where casino gambling is legal, overtook the Las Vegas Strip as the world’s top gambling center in 2006. That year -Â its 24 casinos rang up US$6.95 billion in gambling revenue, while the Strip made US$6.69 billion, regulators in the cities said. Casinos in Macau raked in more than US$10.3 billion in gaming revenue last year – a jump of 46 percent! (Stanley Ho held a monopoly on casinos in Macau until 2004, when the government handed out gaming licenses to three other players. He still dominates -Â owning 18 of the territory’s 28 casinos). 
More than half of last year’s gaming revenue -Â or about 55 billion patacas (US$6.9 billion: euro4.76 billion), was made on the high-stakes baccarat tables reserved for high rollers. Macau -Â an hour by high-speed ferry west of Hong Kong, returned to Chinese rule in 1999, two years after Hong Kong did.