Introduction: Casino Frontiers in Asia

About a decade ago, in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, a casino building boom swept across Asia where governments of different nationstates started to revamp their tourism and leisure industries centred around the global gaming economy. Luxurious mega-casino resorts mushroomed in diverse destinations in Asia, from Singapore to Macau, from Laos to the Philippines, including places that have long held conservative views against gambling and the vice economy associated with it. These new resorts featuring integrated business and entertainment interests have become the trendiest development projects that promise to improve foreign direct investment, state tax revenue, local employment, and to deliver transformative results to the national economy. As a potent antidote to the sluggish regional market, the casino industry carries high hopes for many Asian states to stimulate economic growth as well as to promote new national images as modern, cosmopolitan, and progressive. Packaged as global integrated resorts (IRs), these latest development projects decidedly separate themselves from the older model of casinos made for the main purpose of gambling. The modern IR fashions a specific “resort” appeal to shake off the stigma, sleaze, and crime around gambling by branding a destination venue with a world of funfair that incorporates conferencing and exhibitions, entertainment, theme parks, topped up by luxury shopping and fine dining. These new Asian casino IRs offer a broad range of entertainment options under one roof, with enough alternatives to suit every interest and desire. Mega-casinos are multi-layered social and political spaces where different networks and practices reshape power configurations. As socialspatial assemblages of gambling, entertainment, and speculation, casinos are productive sites where contesting practices produce new realities of citizenship, consumption, work, and governance.