The opening of the UAE's first casino resort faces a modest delay in the aftermath of the Middle East war and the Hormuz blockade, according to Craig Billings, CEO of Wynn Resorts. A luxury gambling project backed by a US company is being pushed around by war, shipping disruptions, and the chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, while the people living in the region absorb the fallout.
Who Holds the License
Billings said, 'While we have faced logistical and shipping challenges in the region, deliveries have largely continued and we are rerouting shipments and sourcing alternative materials where needed.' He added, 'We do expect a modest delay in our opening timeline, and I expect that we will quantify that in the coming months,' while saying the opening is still expected to be in 2027. The language is polished, but the reality is plain: a high-end resort depends on supply chains, rerouted shipments, and alternative materials while war and blockade grind through the region.
Wynn, a US company, operates casinos in Las Vegas and Boston as well as in Macau, a Chinese territory close to Hong Kong. In October 2024, the group received the first commercial gaming operator's license to be issued by the UAE, where gambling is currently banned. That license handed a foreign company the green light to build a casino in a place where gambling is prohibited under Islamic laws in the oil-rich Gulf state.
The company is developing a luxury resort at Wynn Al Marjan Island in Ras Al Khaimah, one of the seven emirates that constitute the UAE. The 1,542-room resort will have gaming amenities and had been scheduled to open in early 2027. The project is not some modest local venture; it is a massive, luxury development built for a market shaped by wealth, exclusion, and state permission.
Who Pays for the Chaos
Ras Al Khaimah is described as a quiet place, one of the UAE's less wealthy emirates and a popular destination for domestic holidays. The northernmost emirate is the closest Emirati territory to the Strait of Hormuz, which is now blockaded by Iran. That geography puts the project in the path of a wider conflict that ordinary people and local economies did not choose, but are forced to live with.
Iran has targeted the UAE more than any other country during the war, hitting US assets and civilian infrastructure, while its blockade of Hormuz has impeded oil exports and port operations. Since the ceasefire came into place in April, the UAE has reported some Iranian attacks, though Tehran denies striking the country. Gulf states have been stuck between war and peace as talks stall and the vital Strait of Hormuz remains all but closed.
That is the backdrop for the casino delay: not just a construction schedule slipping, but a region trapped between military escalation, blocked trade routes, and the priorities of capital. The resort can wait for rerouted shipments. Port operations, oil exports, and civilian infrastructure do not get that luxury.
The Bigger Machine
Gambling is prohibited under Islamic laws in the oil-rich Gulf state, where the population is 90 percent foreign. That detail sits at the center of the arrangement: a wealthy state, a foreign-majority population, and a foreign casino operator moving in under a special license while the broader social order remains tightly controlled.
The item is a live update from The Times of Israel dated May 8, 2026, and is by AFP. It reports a 'modest delay,' but the facts around it show a much larger apparatus at work: war, blockade, licensing, luxury development, and a region where the costs of elite projects and geopolitical conflict land far below the people making the decisions.