HONG KONG (Reuters) – He has trained on Broadway and been a Wall Street banker.

Now, Adrian Cheng, 33-year-old scion of the world’s largest jewellery retailer and one of Asia’s leading property developers is gearing up for his latest challenge – modernizing his family’s $25 billion empire for what he calls a “new era”.

MACAU, April 30 (Reuters) – With little fanfare, China is
sending an official with a ‘tough cop’ reputation to be its top
man in Macau, the world’s biggest gambling hub, as Beijing puts
tackling corruption centre stage.

Li Gang, a veteran of handling contentious issues in Hong
Kong, is slated to this year take control of China’s liaison
office in the former Portuguese colony – which like Hong Kong is
a special administrative region under China’s ‘one country, two
systems’ principle.

TOKYO/HONG KONG, April 23 (Reuters) – After Singapore,
Japan?

A pro-casino group of Japanese lawmakers has tapped an
influential member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)
as its leader and plans to submit legislation this year aimed at
opening the world’s third-largest economy to casino gambling.

Although casinos are illegal, Japanese are already active
gamblers, and a pinball-like game called pachinko generates some
$200 billion in revenue each year – about the same as Toyota
Motor Corp. Japan is often touted as the next major
casino market after Chinese enclave Macau, the world’s biggest
gambling hub, which raked in revenue of $38 billion last year.

MACAU, April 14 (Reuters) – Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson’s
reference to triad organised crime gangs in testimony in a
lawsuit has hit a raw nerve in Macau, the Chinese boomtown that
his Las Vegas Sands Corp helped transform from a
gangland haven into a $38 billion gambling capital.

The lawsuit against Sands was brought by Hong Kong
businessman Richard Suen, who is seeking $328 million he says he
is owed for helping the U.S. firm obtain one of three coveted
casino licenses in Macau, now the world’s biggest gambling
market with annual revenues more than six times Las Vegas’s.

HONG KONG/MILAN, April 5 (Reuters) – Italian fashion house
Prada SpA plans to focus its next retail push on the
Middle East and the Americas to offset lower spending in Europe
and lessen its reliance on Asia, where booming growth is
levelling off.

The maker of leather handbags and colourful Miu Miu dresses
said revenue in February was strong thanks to Chinese New Year
celebrations but expected economic uncertainty in parts of
Europe and Asia to persist this year.

Hong Kong (Reuters) – Born in Macau, the world’s largest gambling hub now awash with investment, Tyler Kuan could easily have been complacent about life. Instead, he wants to go to London and back – on a bicycle equipped with a fold-out tent and only a handful of funds.

Billions of dollars of foreign investment are being pumped into the former Portuguese colony and there are ample opportunities to work in the lucrative casino industry, but the gangly 27-year-old is turning his back on all that to spend years pedaling thousands of kilometers alone, all in the name of adventure.

SINGAPORE/HONG KONG, March 7 (Reuters) – Malaysian casino
operator Genting Bhd envisions red and gold pagodas
and a panda exhibit on the 87-acre plot of Las Vegas land it
bought this week, a new gambling playground for rich Chinese
moving their money overseas.

A 90-minute flight away, in San Francisco, China’s biggest
property developer has formed a joint venture to develop two
high-rise condominium towers that are likely to draw wealthy
Chinese buyers. It is China Vanke Co Ltd’s first
foray into the U.S. market, and probably not its last.

HONG KONG, March 1 (Reuters) – Gambling revenue in Macau,
the world’s biggest gambling hub, rose 11.5 percent in February
year-on-year, boosted by cash-rich gamblers that flooded the
southern China enclave during a week-long holiday earlier in the
month.

February’s revenue, at 27.1 billion patacas ($3.39 billion),
was at the top end of analyst forecasts for growth of between 9
and 11 percent.

SANYA, China, Feb 17 (Reuters) – Placing bets on green-felt
baccarat tables in a new casino bar on China’s southern Hainan
island, punters seem oblivious to a huge wager quietly being
placed around them, one that could potentially siphon business
from the world’s largest gaming hub in Macau an hour’s flight
away.

For now, players at Jesters casino bar, part of the newly
opened Mangrove Tree Resort World on Sanya Bay, cannot win cash
- only points that they can use to pay for accommodation, luxury
goods, jewelry and artwork for sale at the resort.

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Gleaming skyscrapers, Michelin-starred noodle stalls, secluded beaches and a buzzing night life all make Hong Kong, a former British colony, the perfect place to soak up some Asian festive fun.

Chinese New Year, which starts on February 10 and ushers in the Year of the Snake, is a time when Hong Kong’s frenetic pace slows down and even the hardest working executives take time to enjoy traditional dishes such as “nian gao” sticky rice cakes.