City of luck and lucre

The ruins of St. Paul’s remains Macau’s most famous landmark. But as colossal gaming shrines formerly synonymous only to Las Vegas continue to rise in this port city, could this remnant of a burned-down 17th-century Catholic church, along with other 20 or so churches and chapels, now be only symbolic of its religious past?

Even as visitors continue to flock to the stone-carved Ruins—flat and cardboard-like from a distance, but a stunning baroque image as if painted on a bright blue canvas on a clear day—you can tell they come only for the requisite souvenir photo.

For to denizens and tourists alike, faith in these parts appears to have shifted to the materialist kind. The glitter of casinos beckon; they are Macau’s new temples of worship.

While the occasional pious tourist can be found paying his respects in the churches that dot this tiny autonomous region of China, legacies left behind by the Portuguese colonizers who first settled there in the 16th century, there’s no debate that the real congregation happens in places like The Venetian Macao Resort & Casino, which opened in August and where guests arrive by the busloads. The Venetian Macao is twice the size of the one in Las Vegas, and has the largest gambling space in the world.