The man who has twice tried to win the bid to run the UK National Lottery is now apparently looking to expand his business into new territory. The National Lottery is extending the final deadline for submissions for the third lottery licence, to be for a 10-year minimum instead of the former 7-year licences, until 9 February, ‘following a request from an interested party’ but Richard Branson’s Virgin Group is reportedly negotiating in Macau for a 20-hectare site to build a US$3 billion casino complex. The new lottery licence’s starting date is 1 February 2009, following a transition period after the winner is announced in August this year.

The Financial Times quotes Branson as saying that a Macau deal should be reached within a couple of months and development start soon afterwards. The project is for three hotels and a casino, with a scheduled opening date for 2010. A mix of Virgin equity and international debt financing is expected to fund the development, and Virgin would need to tie up with one of the six groups who hold the Macau gambling rights. If a deal is finalised, Virgin could expect to recoup initial costs within 18 months. When Las Vegas Sands opened Sands Macau, the investment was recouped in just eight months but operators now face more competition.

Virgin is one of the most diverse brands in the world and all the businesses are run independently. The brand operates in what it describes as ‘typically markets where the customer has been ripped off or under-served, where there is confusion and/or where the competition is complacent.’ On the gaming front, Virgin Games is a wholly owned trading division of Virgin.com Limited. At virgingames.com the company offers four different gaming areas: Virgin Casino, VirginBingo, Virgin Poker and Virgin Skill and the emphasis is on fun. If the Virgin brand arrives in Macau as a land-based casino it will be one more field that the flamboyant Richard Branson adds to his collection of business ventures.

Exactly thirty-nine years ago, on 26 January 1968, Branson’s first business venture was launched – the first issue of Student Magazine went to print. The 70s brought music, from mail-order records through record shop to studio, club and signing the Sex Pistols. In the 80s the sky was not the limit as Virgin took to the airwaves and the skies and in 1985 won the Business Enterprise Award for company of the year. Virgin Mobile, Virgin Rail, Virgin Money and much, much more was added throughout the 90s up to the present. Virgin Casinos seems likely to be the next Branson bet. (E-01.26.07)

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