Wynn Resorts is expanding its casino portfolio. Upwards. On Thursday, the company revealed a $3.9 billion integrated resort plan in United Arab Emirates on the man-made Al Marjan Island in Ras Al Khaimah. The focal point of the development is a 1,000-foot tall hotel tower on the Arabian Gulf.
The property will have everything one would expect from something so enormous: casino, 1,500 hotel rooms, including suites and villas, a theater, loads of restaurants and shopping, spas, events center, and more. The entire resort will be 5.6 million square feet; the casino makes up only four percent of that.
“We have spent the past year meticulously programming and concepting Wynn Al Marjan Island, carefully considering its unique location,” said Craig Billings, CEO of Wynn Resorts. “I am incredibly proud of our design and development team’s ability to impart our legacy of rich, thoughtful design into a sun-soaked beachside resort that will delight customers, new and old. We look forward to opening Wynn Al Marjan Island in early 2027.”
The company explained how the design of Wynn Al Marjan Island “takes its inspiration both from the natural landscape surrounding the resort,” but really, it looks like a really tall Wynn resort. That’s not to say it doesn’t look nice in the artist renderings, but it certainly looks like a huge Wynn on its own island.
Wynn Al Marjan – first announced in early 2022 – will be the first legal casino in the UAE when it opens in four years.
The fact that the casino will be in UAE makes for some interesting logistics. UAE is a Muslim country and Islam prohibits gambling. As such, UAE citizens will not be able to gamble at Wynn Al Marjan. Fortunately for Wynn, only 10 percent of the country’s population are actually UAE citizens, so the casino will still have plenty of gamblers. UAE citizens, of course, could still patronize the other portions of the resort.
There are two different tax rates applied to the casino. “High-end” games are taxed at 5 percent, while “mass-market” games are taxed at 15 percent. The regulations are similar to those found in Singapore.
Deutsche Bank gaming analyst Carlo Santarelli said, “Given the relatively low tax rate, we expect property [cash flow] margins to be above those experienced in Macau, though likely below those of Singapore.”
Though impressive, Wynn Al Marjan will be far from the tallest building in UAE. There are 34 buildings in the country that are at least 1,000 feet tall – it sounds like Wynn will end up on the low end of that. One of those buildings, Dubai’s famed Burj Khalifa, is the tallest building in the world at 2,717 feet. Wynn Al Marjan will be the tallest building in the emirate of Ras Al Khaimah. All of the 1,000-foot-tall buildings are either in Dubai or Abu Dhabi.
Image credit: Wynn Resorts
