This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on November 25, 2024 - December 1, 2024

The sharp rebuke that the Gambling Regulatory Authority (GRA) of Singapore delivered to Resorts World Sentosa Pte Ltd (RWS) for an “unsatisfactory performance” in relation to its integrated resort (IR) comes as a surprise, considering that RWS has committed to investing billions in its facility there.

In April this year, Genting Singapore Ltd, which owns RWS, stated that it was committed to investing S$6.8 billion (RM22.6 billion) in upgrading the existing facilities as well as building new ones under the RWS2.0 programme over the next eight years.

But if anybody was expecting Genting Singapore’s experience of doing business in the island state to be plain sailing because of the huge investment committed, they were recently proved wrong.

Last week, GRA extended RWS’s licence for only two years, instead of three. The extension was cut by a year after a performance review by an evaluation panel (EP) that included the Singapore Tourism Board.

According to the EP review, RWS’s performance in relation to tourism between January 2021 and December 2023 was unsatisfactory, with several areas requiring rectification and substantial improvement.

In its defence, Genting Singapore stated that the tourism industry in Singapore faced significant challenges during the evaluation, which was carried out amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The company reaffirmed, however, its commitment to transforming and rejuvenating its existing offerings to improve their appeal to tourists.

RWS is looking to the RWS2.0 expansion programme to help maintain its status as a premium tourism destination.

In the light of the demands of GRA, it is easy to see why Genting Singapore executive chairman Tan Sri Lim Kok Thay stressed during the annual shareholders’ meeting in April that RWS was positioned as a tourist destination rather than a casino.

This effectively means that the priority for Genting Singapore is tourism and not the casino business, which, although viewed as more lucrative, has to take a back seat for now.

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