Where the Action Is

Atop 5,820-ft. Mount Ulu Kali, the tropic air turns chill at night and lights from the distant capital of Kuala Lumpur glitter like diamonds. But visitors to the new 200-room Genting Highlands Hotel could hardly care less about the breathtaking view. Since the resort opened in May, thousands of eager customers have driven up a misty, winding mountain road for a headier kind of excitement--gambling in Malaysia's first legalized casino.

Respectability. At almost any hour of the day there is steady action at the blackjack, baccarat, roulette and craps tables, many of them run by female dealers or croupiers. The players are affluent businessmen from Kuala Lumpur and nearby Singapore, accompanied by wives or mistresses in silk pantsuits. Collectively, they wager an estimated $100,000 every 24 hours. On a visit last month, the Sultan of Selangor put a royal stamp of respectability on the new venture by winning $133 at roulette.

Like a growing number of countries in the Far East, the Malaysian government decided to cash in on gambling as a means of raising much-needed revenue. Surprisingly, the venture provoked little criticism from Malaysia's conservative Islamic population, and the government plans to issue more casino licenses. But, as Finance Minister Tan Siew Sin puts it, such casinos will be confined "to areas that are relatively inaccessible so that the poorer sections of our community cannot patronize them even if they want to."

Gambling Junkets. Elsewhere in Asia, gambling is going legitimate so fast that Continental Consolidated Ltd., an American-dominated Hong Kong company that manages casinos in South Korea and Malaysia, is preparing a new kind of junket, a tour of the area's biggest gaming places. The Diners' Club in Singapore has even agreed to take tourists up to Genting Highlands and let them gamble on their credit cards.

The South Korean government, which licensed four legal casinos three years ago, now takes in about $2,000,000 annually from the operations. Macao, long the mecca of Asian gambling, has been upgraded from seedy dens where croupiers wore undershirts to gilded halls in lavish hotels boasting Thai masseuses. The tiny Portuguese colony off the Chinese mainland today draws 1,300,000 visitors a year, many of them sped there by gleaming hydrofoils or ferryboats featuring strip shows.

If Continental Consolidated has its way, Laos and South Viet Nam may soon have similar operations. There is also a move afoot in the Philippines to legalize a score of clip joints that have operated virtually undisturbed along Manila Bay. Even tiny Nepal has opened a casino in the Soaltee Oberoi Hotel in Katmandu.

In the Indonesian capital of Djakarta, the municipal government last year took in $6,000,000, a third of its revenue, from three licensed casinos, numerous slot machines, horse racing, greyhound races, jai alai and a local lottery. The Casino Pix, located on the 13th floor of the Sarinah Department Store, is hardly plush as casinos go. The clients are apt to shun tie and jacket for open sports shirts. There is no alcohol, no floor show, no music--but big winners are provided with a ride home to protect their cash. "Elsewhere it is the bandits who benefit," says Djakarta's forceful mayor, Major General Ali Sadikin. "Here it is the government."

In the five years since he legalized the underground casinos that had been operating under army protection, Sadikin has used gambling revenues to build and rehabilitate some 750 schools, fill in potholes on city streets and install more traffic signals. Other Indonesian cities are now emulating Sadikin's method of filling city coffers.

Numbers Game. The new surge of legalized gambling throughout Asia is not likely to diminish the passion of villagers in Bali or Luzon for wagering piles of well-worn notes on bloody cockfights. Nor is it likely to keep the average Singapore housewife from losing about 50-c- a week on an illicit numbers game with forbidding 132-to-l odds. But by recognizing that gambling goes on anyway, the countries now rushing to legalize the games have not only brought the operations out from under the table but have also stacked the cards in their favor.

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