SINGAPORE (AFP) - - Macau's success as a gaming haven is spurring the industry in Asia, with some countries already building massive casinos and others moving to legalise them, experts said Tuesday.

The provision of wholesome entertainment, retail shopping, and hotel and convention facilities as part of the gaming experience is helping to shed the usual image of casinos as linked to gambling, crime and sleaze, they said.

"The major thing that has ... revolutionised the gaming industry in this part of the world of course is Macau," said Andy Nazarechuk, the dean of the Singaporean campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Macau's casinos reported revenues of 9.7 billion US dollars in the first seven months of this year, up 44 percent from the year before, he said.

The southern Chinese territory's gaming revenues in 2007 topped 10 billion dollars for the first time, well ahead of the Las Vegas Strip, other figures have shown.

Singapore is constructing two integrated casino resorts, one of them set to open in late 2009, after the government lifted a long-standing ban on casino gambling.

Canada-based Asian Coast Development Ltd. (ACDL) is constructing a 4.2-billion-US-dollar beachfront project in Vietnam's Ba Ria-Vung Tau province, which will include the communist nation's first Las Vegas-style casino.

ACDL chief executive David Subotic told delegates the 169-hectare (417-acre) development, called the "Ho Tram Strip," will feature five-star hotels, luxury resorts, a conference centre and a golf course designed by Greg Norman.

The first casino is slated to open in late 2010. Another luxury resort with 1,200 hotel rooms, a casino, restaurants and nightclubs will be operational by 2011.

Japan hopes to open its first casino either by 2012 or 2013 after legislation is put in place, said Toru Mihara, a casino adviser to Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

Mihara said Japan was closely studying the Singaporean model for casino resorts offering family entertainment, convention facilities, luxury shopping and restaurants, apart from gambling.

Japan currently allows gambling on horse, speedboat and bicycle racing, and on lotteries. Pachinko, a Japanese version of pinball, is not defined as gambling, but Mihara said it yielded turnover of 30 trillion yen (278 billion dollars) a year.

Taiwan is aiming to pass legislation by the end of this year to allow casinos to operate, said Day Yang Liu, director of the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology.

The country is aiming for two to three integrated casino resorts, initially on Penghu island, about 40 minutes by plane from Taipei, he told the conference.

In Thailand, Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej has said that he plans to build five casinos open to both foreign holidaymakers and Thai citizens in the tourist hotspots of Phuket, Pattaya, Khon Kaen, Hat Yai and Chiang Mai.

Chea Peng Chheang, secretary of state at Cambodia's ministry of economy and finance, told the delegates on Tuesday his country's focus will be to further develop casinos located along its land borders.

Education is key to easing worries about the gaming industry, Nazarechuk said.

"It takes time to educate people that the gaming industry is a viable way to providing entertainment ... generating jobs (and) improving the economy," he said.

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