This has left financing of the billion-dollar behemoths to a small group of banks, including Societe Generale, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs, who are having trouble finding confederates to share the risk.

ING, Calyon Corporate & Investment Bank, BNP Paribas and Standard Chartered are among the top regional lenders sitting out the Macau boom. Bankers familiar with their lending practices say that the gambling industry's past association with money laundering, racketeering and graft is a major factor, as is the absence of a track record of successful bank-financed casino projects in Macau.

Some bankers have tried to duck around internal guidelines by moving to fund the hotel portion of casino resorts, but that strategy has met with limited success since gaming proceeds will make up the lion share of the projects' cash flow.

Macau's first casino debt financing deal secured only by the project's own cash flow was arranged last autumn for Wynn Macau, the first project in the SAR of American impresario Steve Wynn, who is credited with turning Las Vegas into the cash cow it is today.

Societe General of France and Germany's Deutsche Bank arranged the US$397 million (HK$3.1 billion) loan that will go toward the US$704 million first phase of the casino. It took them 15 months to wrestle with structuring and filling out the lending syndicate. They had to ``scour the world'' to find bankers willing and able to put money into unproven Macau, according to one banker involved in the transaction.

Chinese banks including Bank of China and Industrial and Commercial Bank (Macau) and local lenders Banco Nacional Ultramarino and Banco Commercial de Macau weren't hard to persuade while Societe Generale also roped in second-tier names such as Allied Irish Bank, Korea First Bank, Hong Kong-based Canadian Eastern Finance, Japan's Aozora Bank and Germany's WestLB.

Societe Generale and Deustche are now at work financing the US$345 million second phase of Wynn Macau.

Goldman Sachs ended up with a similar cast of lesser names when it put together a US$1.01 billion syndicated loan for Las Vegas Sands' projects in Macau and Las Vegas last summer despite the similarly impressive track record of Sheldon Adelson, Sands' chairman and chief executive.

Goldman's final lineup included Canada's Nova Scotia Bank, US-based CIT Group/Equipment Financing and Wells Fargo Foothill, and Germany's Commerzbank Securities.

Goldman, Societe General and Deutsche may not have a lock on Asian casino finance. JPMorgan, which counts Wynn Resorts among its clients in the United States, and Credit Suisse First Boston are maneuvering for deals in Macau as well as upcoming projects in Singapore. HSBC also intends to finance initial development costs, though it will avoid extending new funding for operating casinos.

But even the addition of these players will still make for a small field to scrap over providing HK$3 billion in debt financing for K Wah Construction Materials' takeover of Galaxy Casino and a loan toward the US$975 million cost of the first Macau casino project of the joint venture of MGM Mirage and casino heiress Pansy Ho.

tim.leemaster@singtaonewscorp.com