Following an announcement that South African casino giant Sun International is to be part of the new Chilean gaming licensing law, in a project for the Mostazal region close to Santiago, there now comes news that the company is looking to invest in Russia. An earlier proposal for a Sun International casino resort in the Moscow region was abandoned when the Kremlin pushed all gambling into four designated zones last year.

The project has now moved some 1,200 km south from Moscow to the border area of the Krasnador and Rostov regions. It is reported that Sun International has applied for a long-term lease on two hectares in the gambling zone, and that the Casino Sun will become the largest casino resort in Russia. It is said that infrastructure will be provided by the state with around US$500 million being spent on roads, airport, railway and gas and electric pipelines. Total investment in the project is expected to be about US$2.5 billion.

The Rostov region is the fifth most populous federal state in Russia, mainly ethnic Russians. The major industries are agriculture and food processing with some heavy industry and auto manufacture and the area is within the Moscow time zone. Sun International pioneered resort casinos in South Africa and the company now looks set to take that pioneering spirit international. Plans for UK projects may have been thwarted for the time being but Chile and Russia, at opposite ends of the earth, show that the company aims for the sun to shine far beyond South Africa. (E-04.30.07)

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