A Casino for Sunshine Coast: Will They? Won’t They?

We might have got some of the details mixed up, or there might be a little more buzz around the more off-the-wall inclusions in the Coolum resort casino redevelopment plans, but heres what weve gathered: there may be dinosaurs. There might be a full-scale replica of the Titanic. And a hovercraft. Possibly Aliens.

That last one, we made up. But the rest are all in the rumour mill thats fed on an almost daily basis by the eccentric brilliance of Clive Palmer. Were more interested in his plans to redevelop the Sunshine Coast resort into a top-class casino resort that we are in his plans to bring back dinosaurs or the Titanic (weve seen both films, and neither ended well...).

From what weve gathered about those casino resort development plans, theres no shortage of ambition. All thats missing at this stage is the approval of the Queensland Government, with whom Palmer has a fractious relationship, to say the least.

Which is a shame, because hes planned quite a casino resort. This is a different sort of site to Crown Casino Melbourne or The Star in Sydney or even the proposed Crown Towers redevelopment in Perth. Palmer has lots of space to play with, and it looks like he intends to make the most of it if he ever gets government approval.

The planned casino resort would be huge, with a thousand hotel rooms for guests: guests that would arrive at the resort either by monorail from Sunshine Coast Airport, or by hovercraft to the resorts own port. Once there, theyd have the chance to enjoy the casino, of course, but theres also a lot more on offer. 5000 seats in the convention centre, a water park and beachfront amusement park, plus an aquarium and a wildlife park, too. Total cost? AU$2.5billion.

Were not quite sure how to take Palmers plans for Coolum. Some of us think hes fantastic, others that hes a little unhinged. Possibly hes both, but you cant deny that its a positive for the gambling industry in Australia that a billionaire mining mogul is looking to invest billions of Australian dollars in a casino resort. Weve had the chance of late to talk about the health of the casinos in Australia both the online casinos (and their mobile cousins) and the casino resorts, too. And the grand, crazy plans for another casino resort north of Brisbane are just another bit of good news for the state of the industry here in Australia.

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A Casino for Sunshine Coast: Will They? Won’t They?

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