For Middle Eastern contractor ALEC, casino construction is a new specialism.
Although the engineering and contracting specialist has built plenty of luxury hotel resorts, museums and theme parks across the UAE, until late last year, like most construction firms in the Gulf, where large-scale gambling has been outlawed for decades, gaming facilities were absent from its projects list.
But in November 2023 all that changed when ALEC, which is part of the Investment Corporation of Dubai, won the main contract to build the country’s first gaming resort in the northern emirate of Ras Al Khaimah.
The Wynn Al Marjan Resort, located on a man-made archipelago of four islands off the coast of RAK, will be run by Nevada-headquartered casino operator Wynn Resorts, whose portfolio includes Wynn Las Vegas and two vast casino resorts in Macau and is expected to open in 2027.
“ALEC has successfully developed its reputation as a multifaceted main contractor by delivering some of the region’s most challenging projects,” said ALEC managing director Barry Lewis in a statement. “We look forward to utilising our extensive experience to deliver what will indisputably be a waterfront destination unlike anything ever seen before.”
Certainly, the project, which includes a casino, 1,500 guest rooms, 24 restaurants and lounges, a spa, a shopping centre, a theatre and a convention centre, will be unlike anything seen before in the country where gaming was only legalised in 2023 when the government established a General Commercial Gaming Regulatory Authority which has the power to grant a single casino license to each of the seven emirates if they wish to open up to gambling.
Currently gambling is illegal not just in the UAE but across the Gulf region, where punters must travel as far as either Egypt or Lebanon to bet in a casino.
Yet as governments across the region look to diversify their economies away from hydrocarbons and to increase tourist traffic in the region, it looks as though a new wave of casino construction is set to take place, spelling out lucrative construction contracts for all kinds of contractors and subcontractors.