Ras Al Khaimah's $5.7B gaming bet draws Las Vegas attention

A $5.7 billion bet on gaming in the Gulf has turned Ras Al Khaimah into a market that investors, operators and tourism officials are watching closely. Last month the emirate’s representatives came to Las Vegas to study the industry at its source.

With roughly a year to go before Wynn Resorts opens its resort in the UAE, officials from the emirate scheduled meetings across the United States, including stops in New York, Florida, Michigan and Utah. In Las Vegas, the delegation sat down with Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority CEO Steve Hill, Mayor Shelley Berkley and members of the business community. The group did not provide other names.

The draw, by every account, is Wynn Al Marjan, the company’s nearly 1,200-foot tower rising over the Arabian Gulf. When complete, the property will hold 1,542 hotel rooms and suites, 22 high-priced villas with beachfront access, 22 restaurants and lounges, and retail and meeting space across a 5.6 million square foot footprint. The casino itself will take up just 4 percent of that, but it will make the resort the first casino-resort in the UAE, a country where roughly three-quarters of the population adheres to Islam, a religion that considers gambling harmful.

Carel Richter, an adviser on international relations to emirate ruler Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi, framed the visit in economic terms. “Tourism is the fastest growing sector at the moment, which could triple its contribution to our [gross domestic product] over the next decade,” he said. He described the emirate as “a growing business hub” and credited Wynn as “a catalyst for this expansion.”

The emirate is backing that pitch with infrastructure spending. In a statement to the U.S.-UAE Business Council, Richter said it was the first time representatives from different Ras Al Khaimah entities had traveled to the U.S. together “with the aim to present one unified integrated ecosystem.” The spending includes road improvements, plans for 45,000 housing units, and a quarter-mile bridge linking Wynn Al Marjan Island to the main highway toward Dubai and the northern emirates. “Beyond real estate we’re growing across many areas. The manufacturing sector is growing,” Richter said.

Hill said the delegation’s questions centered on the tourism industry the Wynn project is expected to lead. “They’re kind of stepping into this in a big way,” he said. “They were looking for thoughts on how to structure things, putting on trade shows or sporting events. We’re happy to answer those questions, particularly when we have hometown folks who are doing business there.” Hill also saw upside for Las Vegas, arguing the city sits “at the top of that [tourism] pyramid” and that a UAE customer base could be “very attractive.” “It’s a pretty similar place to Las Vegas. People want to come here and experience it and we would like to make it easier to get to Vegas from that region. The more reasons you have to make that connection, the easier it is to sell those flights,” he said.

By contrast, Berkley came away focused on business ties beyond Wynn. She said the group appeared to be seeking connections with the city and Clark County, and she introduced the delegation to the city’s economic development team. “It wasn’t just a courtesy visit,” she said. “I think they came here to learn and to get the information they need to take back to their country,” adding that she got the impression top UAE officials would visit Las Vegas sometime next year. “Anything they do in Southern Nevada would be a benefit to all of us,” she said. A Wynn spokesman declined to comment.

Meanwhile, the project has absorbed real costs. Wynn CEO Craig Billings confirmed at the Global Gaming Expo last month that the Middle East conflict with Iran added $600 million to the budget through higher shipping and building material costs, on top of comments he made in August. Still, the timeline has held. “We missed one day of construction,” Billings said, referring to areas of the UAE being hit by missiles, while crediting the emirates’ security efforts and noting that consumer supply chains there remain “completely normal.” He called the supply chain shifts and rising shipping rates “just the realities of the market. From our perspective, it’s super straightforward. Get open [and] start earning.”

Analysts see a potentially lucrative setup. In a note to investors ahead of G2E, Wolf Research gaming analyst Peter Supino compared the pending one-casino UAE market to Singapore, where Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa Island generated more than $5.5 billion in gaming revenue in 2025, a 24 percent increase from the prior year, according to Gaming Intelligence, with Marina Bay Sands estimated at more than two-thirds of that total. Supino also cited research showing the UAE’s hotel room supply through 2030 is classified as luxury. “One-third of the world’s population lives within a four-hour flight of the UAE,” he wrote, adding that benchmarking against Singapore “suggests Wynn’s Al Marjan could beat UAE gaming revenue targets.”

For Las Vegas, the visit signals a new competitor that may also become a partner, a market whose opening could feed traffic both ways.