The United Arab Emirates’ gaming market continues to take shape, with regulators promising to provide a platform for “out-of-the-box” innovation.
Speaking at SBC Summit Lisbon, Kevin Mullally, CEO of the General Commercial Gaming Regulatory Authority (GCGRA), the country’s regulator, confirmed that technology will define the jurisdiction’s regulatory framework, not the other way around.
“Figure out how to entertain your customers in the best way you can, and we will figure out a way to regulate it,” he told attendees.
“Whatever you bring us, we will design a way, we will make sure it’s safe. We will make sure that we have data to ensure that the customer experience is protected. We want the technology providers to focus on entertainment, not look at the regulations and have to design games within this box.”
The UAE embarked on its journey toward legalizing gaming in 2023, appointing Mullally, an industry veteran and former Gaming Laboratories executive, to lead the transformation.
In August last year, The Game LLC received the country’s first gaming license, authorizing it to operate the UAE Lottery.
Christina Hu, Chief Strategy Officer of Momentum, whose subsidiaries run the UAE Lottery, emphasized that the market’s openness encourages innovation.
She said: “Every regulation, in my experience, is designed to drive innovation and to make it easier to do business for all sizes of companies, small, medium and large. From my perspective, the regulations and tax scheme are all designed to enable innovation.”
The most significant entrant into the UAE gaming market is Wynn Resorts, which is developing the $3.9bn Wynn Al Marjan Island integrated resort, scheduled to open in March 2027.
This week, Abdulla Al Abdouli, CEO of Marjan, which is delivering the project alongside Wynn and RAK Hospitality Holding, confirmed that construction remains on track.
“It is one of the biggest projects in the UAE and one of the most anticipated in the region. It will increase the number of visitors to the emirate,” he told Khaleej Times.
“The Wynn resort will provide an offering, but supporting it requires residential units and apartments as well. Many businesses will be created there. It will be an integral part of Ras Al Khaimah’s economy.”
Speaking at SBC Summit Lisbon, David Patent, EVP of Wynn Al Marjan Island, outlined the opportunities that come with building the resort from scratch.
Planned innovations include real-time customer alerts, smart tables “for virtually all games,” and personalized, real-time marketing at both slot machines and table games.
“We’ll be taking [marketing] to a much more granular level than anybody’s done previously,” he said. “Because we get to start from scratch and we do not have a legacy database or data model around our necks, we’re actually able to build this from scratch and so our data model will allow us to understand our customers from a 360-degree experience world.”
Craig Billings, CEO of Wynn Resorts, estimates the UAE gaming market could reach $5bn.
Although the UAE has a population of just 11.5 million, it welcomes more than 20 million visitors annually. According to Mullally, commercial gaming will be “a cornerstone of [the UAE’s] vision for diversified economic growth, significantly contributing to tourism and foreign investment.”
Don’t forget to subscribe to our Telegram channel!
