According to ingatlanok.hu, one Hans Asamer is saying that by the end of this month he will submit an application for the building permits necessary to begin work on the long-promised “Eurovegas Hungary” gaming and resort complex near the border with Austria. The portal, quoting the Austrian magazine Trend, reports that the first phase of Asamer’s Ft 180 billion (€700 million) project involves a casino, a hotel, wellness (spa) facilities and a conference center with a capacity of 4,000, and would be completed in the fall of 2010. All of which is slightly odd, because late last year we reported that the entire project had crapped out after the local municipality of Bezenye decided to turn over the 350-hectare site in question to a different developer for a recreation facility apparently not including a single card table.
Since then, something has apparently changed, and now there is talk again not only of the first phase of the project, but of subsequent expansions involving another casino, more hotels and entertainment facilities, a golf course and a race track.
Since Asamer has gone on record saying he’ll file for permits within the week, there’s probably no need to spend time now digging into the murky details of this whole deal. But if he doesn’t, it’ll be even harder to take this whole “Eurovegas” thing any more seriously than a street corner game of three-card monty.