Lucrative business – Who owns casinos?
The popularity of gambling has resulted in a rise in casino ownership. Casinos generate billions of dollars each year, and there are over 500 casinos in the U.S. alone. The numbers may be staggering, but what’s often overlooked is that not all casinos are owned by big companies or even individuals. In fact, many small business owners have found a way to make a living from owning a casino! Who, in fact, owns casinos and gross a nice profit out of them?
Governments
There are casinos in the world owned by country governments. The United Kingdom, for example, has a number of casinos owned by the government. Crown Casino, located in the city of Melbourne, Victoria, is one of the most famous and profitable casinos owned by the government. It not only offers traditional casino games, but also horse racing and other sporting events. Monte Carlo casino in Monaco is another prime example of a luxurious casino owned by a government. It is only available for tourists, because of the law created in the past that local people cannot spend their money in the casino, but in exchange they do not pay taxes.
Macau’s casinos are owned partially by local authorities that are autonomic from the Chinese government, which province Macau is.
Native American tribes
Law in most of the American states ban gambling. The only exception to the rule is when a gambling activity is operated by an Indian tribe, pursuant to a federal law which allows Native Americans tribes to operate gaming facilities on their. No one will punish you and ban you from entering a tribal ground. In fact, in the early days of gambling in America, it was actually the tribes who were running the games only and then some states started to allow to open private casinos within their borders.
Tribal casinos are specific in their design, the games they offer for gamblers and the amenities they provide. The Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, for example, runs the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut. This casino is one of the largest and most profitable in the world.
Las Vegas Sands Corporation
This company was founded in Las Vegas by Sheldon Adelson, an American businessman. It is now one of the largest casino operators in the world and is currently active in Macau, Singapore and Las Vegas. It was also the first to open a casino resort in one of the province belonging to China – Macau – which gave it an edge over its competitors since it is the only place in the country where gambling is allowed. With several casinos within its group of companies, this corporation is currently known as the largest gaming corporations on the globe.
Private entrepreneurs
Today, there are a good deal of casinos that are privately owned. Operators include small business owners and huge corporations. But many of the casinos are privately owned by individuals who decided to buy a casino and earn money from it. They either did not want or did not have enough capital to open their own casino, so they bought an existing one and started to run it as a small business venture. This is usually how the smaller, less popular casinos are owned.
There are obviously extremely wealthy people who build their entire chain of casinos from scratch, but there are also small business owners who invest in them. This kind of chain is Grosvenor casinos in the United Kingdom. Owned by a private company of the same name, it is made of over 30 casinos throughout the country.
Online casinos
This is another story, since online casinos are a fairly new business, and you cannot really compare them to a traditional casino. Online casinos allow gamblers to play their favorite games from the comfort of home without even having to leave their flats. This, obviously, changed the face of gambling completely! Some people visit an offline casino for social purposes or simply because they want to experience the atmosphere that only a brick-and-mortar casino can offer. But with the online casino offering the very same games, many people decided to stop leaving their homes!
Of course, you cannot feel the atmosphere in online casinos, but they are still able to keep players entertained thanks to interactive graphics and amazing sound effects that make playing fun and exciting even if you do not see the other players around you.
The popularity of online casinos has resulted in their owners being a different kind of people, and it is hard to make a general statement about who owns them. Some are wealthy businessmen, some are small business owners, and some are even governments or Native American tribes. But one thing is for sure – they are all making a lot of money from this business!
Conclusion
In this day and age, there are several ways to go about opening up a casino. You can either invest in one that is already open or you can simply buy a licence for online gambling, which opens up a great deal of opportunities to any businessman who wants to try their luck.
