The new casino resort owned by Philippine billionaire Andrew Tan and Star Cruises Ltd. doubles the gaming tables available in the city of Manila and is projected to increase casino revenue by over 120%. Located on the sie of a former Air Force base, the newest casino is part of the Philippine’s ongoing efforts to grab a bigger chunk of the Asian gambling boom. While Macau’s revenues have slowed down for the first time in the enclave’s history, the growth has been phenomenal over the past decade.

The partnership between Tan and Star Cruises has the potential to bring in more tourists to the area as well as perk up the flagging casino industry in that nation. Star Cruises brings a huge network of over 2.5 million existing customers and will bus in people from outside the city. Projections for the new resort, located conveniently in front of the new airport terminal, include attracting 11.1 million visitors and $315 million in gambling taxes for the government.

President of Tan’s holding company, Alliance Global Group Inc, said, “The whole idea for this kind of investment is to grow the market and not grab from the existing businesses. We have a product that we can market for tourists to come in a big way.”

“This is infrastructure that the country needs to grow its tourism traffic. We need a product that’s comparable with the rest of the world.”

The completed project will have three hotels with a total of 1,574 rooms along with a 323,000 square foot casino and the same size shopping mall. While it has only 100 tables available for the opening, once all three floors of the casino are finished, there will be 300 tables and over 1,000 slot machines. This is slated to be completed by the end of the year.