Hello and welcome to a jet-lagged GamblingCompliance podcast, coming straight off the plane back from this week’s Asian Casino Executive Summit in Singapore.

Singapore is a particular apt setting for a high level casino summit in the region, given that the clock is ticking to the opening of the territory’s first two licensed resorts – the Marina Bay Sands and Genting International’s Resorts World, Sentosa – in late 2009 and early 2010.

At present, both casinos are nothing more than foundations in the ground of two sprawling construction sites on prime real estate on Sentosa Island and in the Marina Bay area of the city.

But as delegates in Singapore learned, they represent so much more for the Asian casino industry in general as insiders speculate as to how Singapore’s casinos will shape up vis-à-vis Asia’s number one gaming market in Macau.

Unlike Macau’s system of six casino licences holders, Genting and Las Vegas Sands will remain the only two casino operators in the territory until 2016 – a system that in itself hints at a far more tightly regulated market in Singapore.

Singapore’s newly established Casino Regulatory Authority has been charged with drawing up technical regulations governing slot machines and management systems prior to the opening of the country’s first casino in late 2009.

These regulations are likely to be strict, according to Genting International’s director of investor relations Sean Monaghan, who also suggested that Singapore will likely exercise far greater control over junket operations that have proved key to gaining market share amongst high-rolling gamblers in Macau.

“Singapore will likely have a regulatory environment that will limit the degree of ‘creativity’ we have seen in Macau,” Monaghan said.

Singapore at large is currently gripped by preparations for the first ever Singapore Formula 1 Grand Prix later this month – the first F1 race, incidentally, to be staged at nighttime.

But in amongst the seemingly ubiquitous images of Lewis Hamilton currently gracing the city ahead of the Grand Prix, casino executives saved some excitement for the race between Sheldon Adelson’s LVS and Genting for casino market dominance that should get the green-light in 2010.

Genting has already started its engines and is anticipating that its Sentosa resort will attract the most diverse range of gaming customers of any casino anywhere in the world, according to Monaghan. But they can be sure that Adelson, the Michael Schumacher of the casino world, will be unlikely to settle for second place.

Either way, analysts suggested that both companies should see their share prices boosted next year ahead of the advent of casino gambling in Singapore.

But the early progress of Singapore’s market will be closely scrutinized far wider in Asia, as other jurisdictions mull the possibility of introducing casino gambling themselves, either along the lines of the Singapore model, or the more laissez-faire system in Macau.

Taiwan is likely to pass casino enabling legislation for resorts on Penghu Island, an official observer said at the conference – while delegates were equally intrigued as to how the Singapore or Macau systems could possibly be replicated in Japan and elsewhere in the region, with the prospects of Cambodia’s casino market attracting a noticeable degree of excitement amongst summit attendees.

Either way, Singapore certainly does not mark the end of Asia’s casino liberalization drive. Bill Lerner, a senior gaming analyst at Deutsche Bank said that the Asian market would remain underpenetrated relative to demand for gambling in the region.

“The propensity for governments towards gaming is greater than we’ve seen,” he said.