More than 6,000 gaming professionals from around the world are expected to converge on the giant Venetian casino resort for the Global Gaming Expo Asia (G2E Asia) 2008, double the number from last year, organisers said.
The three-day event will showcase the latest slot machines, security software, gaming devices and even weapons detectors from more than 180 international suppliers.
To coincide with the start of the expo, a survey of trends in the Asian gambling market predicted that gaming revenues in the region would overtake those of the United States by 2012.
The expo, however, comes as Macau strains after years of spectacular growth, which the government last year said took its revenues above 10.34 billion US dollars. This exceeded the Las Vegas Strip and was just shy of the wider Las Vegas area.
But Gabriel Chan, gaming analyst at Credit Suisse in Hong Kong, said growth is set to slow significantly in the next few years.
One key factor is a worker shortage that has driven up labour costs to the equivalent of 11 percent of total gaming revenues, a substantial proportion operators have to reduce, Chan said.
"Importing labourers from mainland China would address the problem," Chan told AFP. "However, it will also drag down the pay levels of Macau people and so the government will definitely not consider the move in short term."
Macau in recent years has suffered from labour protests by workers concerned about the influx of mainland and foreign employees and downward pressure on wages.
Chan was unconvinced that casino resorts would be able to diversify their sources of revenues by bringing in shows that have worked well in Las Vegas.
"How many mainland Chinese gamblers are going to spend 1,000 dollars on a Cirque du Soleil show rather that on the baccarat? The idea is questionable," he said, referring to the Venetian's resident show by the Montreal-based entertainment giant that opens in August.
US casino giants, such as Las Vegas Sands and Wynn, have already made strong returns in Macau, a city with only 540,000 people almost entirely reliant on gaming.
Another 15 casinos will open in the next four years, Las Vegas-based casino strategy consultancy Globalysis said in a report released last month, raising questions of oversupply and stretched infrastructure.
However, more than 80 percent of 23 casino executives, academics and analysts interviewed in the survey released Tuesday said it was very likely (67 percent) or somewhat likely (17 percent) that gaming revenues in Asia will surpass those of the US by 2012.
"The results of our... survey foretell a remarkable future for the Asian gaming market -- from continued revenue growth in Macau to the rise of new jurisdictions such as Japan and Singapore," said Frank Fahrenkopf, president and chief executive officer of the American Gaming Association.
Forty-five percent of respondents predicted that Taiwan would be the next Asian country to legalise casino resorts, while 24 percent chose Japan and another 21 percent opted for Thailand.
However, 78 percent of respondents thought it would take at least seven years before electronic slot-machine games would generate as much revenue as table games in Asia.
