Joker In The Deck

Lotte Tour’s new casino resort on Jeju Island aims to cash in, despite South Koreans not being allowed to gamble there.

- Muhammad Cohen

At the center of South Korea’s Jeju Island rises the nation’s tallest mountain, Halla, an icon attracting millions of visitors annually. In the center of Jeju City, Jeju Dream Tower is rising as the island’s tallest building. At 38 stories, it can be a new icon in Asia’s increasingly crowded gambling resort space. Making this $1.4 billion bet pay off requires that developer Lotte Tour draw the right cards in local politics, international affairs and the tricky foreigners-only casino business.

That last consideration is the joker in the deck. Only foreign passport holders can enter 16 of South Korea’s 17 casinos. The lone one open to domestic players, Kangwon Land, a 3.5-hour drive from Seoul, raked in $1.3 billion in casino revenue last year, more than the 16 others combined. Sheldon Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands and Wynn Resorts founder Steve Wynn said they would build integrated resorts on the grand scale of Singapore’s $5.7 billion Marina Bay Sands, if only South Korea would allow its citizens to play there.

“We want to be the Marina Bay Sands of Jeju,” Lotte Tour COO Lawrence Teo says, hoping to appeal to the Korean majority of Jeju visitors who can’t gamble. Its twin towers will host Asia’s largest Grand Hyatt hotel with 1,600 rooms, Korea’s biggest pool deck and a top floor observation area with dining and nightlife. Standing 169 meters, three times Jeju’s normal height limit, the towers will have unobstructed views of Mount Halla and the sea. Under the “modern Korean lifestyle” theme, Dream Tower will feature 24-hour Korean barbecue, hip takes on the Korean diner and jjimjilbang spa plus a Korean designer fashion mall open deep into the night. All told, that should amount to 3,000 jobs and, Lotte Tour says, the biggest source of taxes on Jeju.