High Roller Plays For $1m A Hand At Baccarat Table

A 40-year-old businessman by the name of Mr Han lost US$400k on the turn of a single card while playing baccarat at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. After losing the huge sum, Mr Han’s reaction was typical of a lot of high-rollers as he simply commented: “It’s no big deal.”
Fair enough, as it was just a night out for one of Asia’s super-rich and Mr Han, who started his night’s entertainment with $300k, was up by $200k to $500k when he made the $400k baccarat bet. He then decided to call his two hours of casino gambling to a halt and accept a $200,000 loss on the night.
These high-rollers are known in the gambling industry as “whales” and in order to become a member of the Marina Bay Sands’ (MBS) elite VIP club Mr Han simply deposited $1 million into his casino account. Still, wealth is relative and as Mr Han explains:
“There are bigger fishes out there. My bets appear small compared to these guys. “My heart occasionally skips a beat when I see the stakes they place on the table. It’s crazy.”
An incident which Mr Han refers to is one night at the casino when he describes an Indonesian man in his 50s casually wearing T-shirt and jeans but playing for $1 million a hand. As Mr Han explains:  “I wouldn’t have noticed him from far because he looked like a construction worker. But he had $40 million worth of chips on the table. I’m not sure if they were his winnings or capital. Every round, he threw 10 chips worth $100,000 each like they were 50-cent coins. I have never seen anybody bet the $1 million table limit.”
Needless to say these high-rollers are prized by the casinos and for the first three months of 2012, the casino’s parent company Las Vegas Sands posted a strong first-quarter revenue of $701.3 million, 60% of which was accounted by the company’s VIP players.