The gambler leans back comfortably in his chair at a card table inside Vietnam’s new Crown casino, waiting for his female companion to fetch more cash.

At Asia’s casinos, the money just keeps on coming.

Analysts say the region’s increasing wealth is funding a gambling boom that saw Macau overtake Las Vegas in casino revenue, is putting billions of dollars into Singapore’s coffers and encouraged operators like Crown to try cashing in, although for now only foreigners are allowed in Vietnam’s casinos.

Crown is owned by Hoang Dat Silver Shores, which is backed by a US-based Chinese national.

While Macau remains by far the region’s largest casino market, governments from Sri Lanka to Fiji are also eyeing gambling parlours as a way to help attract more tourist dollars.

“The key drivers are rising incomes and pent-up demand for gaming, considering the high appetite to gamble in many Asian cultures,” says Aaron Fischer, a gaming analyst at CLSA brokerage in Hong Kong.

Casinos in the southern Chinese enclave of Macau earned a record $23.5 billion last year, up about 58 per cent from 2009, according to official figures.

In Singapore, where two casino complexes opened in 2010, revenue this year is seen hitting $6.5 billion, rivalling the current take in Las Vegas, he added.

Asia could overtake the US to become the world’s biggest legal casino gaming market by the end of next year, said Jonathan Galaviz, casino industry analyst and chief economist at US-based Galaviz and Co consultancy.

Thanks partly to its casinos, tourist arrivals in Singapore reached a record 11.6 million last year and helped the economy grow almost 15 per cent, analysts said.

More than half of the visitors were from Indonesia, China, Australia, Malaysia and India, according to the city-state’s tourism board.

Macau, a former Portuguese colony, is the only Chinese city where casinos are legal, forcing card sharks and slot machine players to visit the specially-administered territory or venture further afield for legal gambling.

While Macau’s many casinos concentrate on gambling, Singapore’s formula of “integrated resorts” combines two casinos with other attractions.

Singapore’s Resorts World Sentosa, built by Malaysia’s Genting Group, boasts a large gaming area as well as Southeast Asia’s first Universal Studios theme park.