打开宾馆床边的抽屉，在许多城市，你会发现一本基甸国际圣经。在澳门，你会发现一个小巧、整齐、塑料包装的另一种信仰图腾：一副全新的纸牌。闪烁的霓虹灯下，即使你关上帘幕，赌场仍在你的脑海之中挥之不去。每一年，成千上万的游客，穷人和富人，从香港从大陆，做朝圣之行。有钱的精英乘直升飞机而临，工厂的工人坐着拥挤的车厢而至。他们的庙宇命名为“梦想之城和罪恶之都”；集会不断增长。

　　他们以前称它为“亚洲的蒙的卡罗”或者称“东方拉斯维加斯”。但是，这片小小的领土--很少为西方人的大多数人所知--是一个新型的巨大的赌城。几个世纪以来，葡萄牙在这里殖民统治。1999年，作为特别行政区回归中国。由于它享受相对自由的“一国两制”，有了跳跃式的发展，拥有赌博的浮华和拙劣。首要的是，拥有了大量的金钱。

　　目前，澳门比维加斯要大得多得多。确切地讲，是它的四倍。去年，33个赌场的收入达到了147亿英磅。四月，他们达到了一个新高，月创156亿--是远高于2001年全年的收入。普华永道会计公司估计2014年会达到275亿英磅。

　　然而这种闪耀最近日趋衰微。政府发誓要放慢赌场的发展；美国和香港的监管机构已对一个大型的经营者进行了调查。是否长期的幸福时光最终要走向灭亡？

　　澳门的一夜成名，经历了一个世纪半之久。1840年代，当外国商人和贸易者撤退到迅速发展的香港时，葡萄牙当局寻找新的收入来源。

　　“他们开始从事那些见效快的边缘化的、丑陋的工作和贸易，”历史学家詹森·沃迪解释说：出售契约工人到拉丁美洲矿山和种植园；批准建立妓院；开设赌馆。生活在澳门多年的葡萄牙诗人庇山耶把它描写成为“一个物质和精神垃圾集散地”。

　　但对于香港和中国南方的居民来说，吸引力非常简单。“它是如此地随手可及--远离那些侦察的眼睛，”沃迪说，他著有《澳门：来年开勘待毙》。“今天同样也是如此：因为人们对赌博如此痴迷。

　　译文

       Slide open the drawer beside your hotel bed and in many cities you will find a Gideon's bible. In Macau you discover a small neat plastic-wrapped totem of another faith: a brand new deck of cards. Even when you have closed your curtains to the blazing neon the casinos are with you in spirit. Each year millions of visitors rich and poor make the pilgrimage from Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland. The wealthy elite are helicoptered in. Factory workers arrive on cramped coaches. Their temples have names such as the City of Dreams and Babylon; the congregations are growing.

　　They used to call it Asia's Monte Carlo or the Las Vegas of the East. But this small territory - barely known to many in the west - is the new giant of the casino industry. For centuries Macau was a Portuguese colony; since 1999 it has belonged to China as a Special Administrative Region. Thanks to the relative freedoms it enjoys under this "one country two systems" formula it has leapfrogged its rivals embracing the glitz and kitsch of gambling; and above all the cash.

　　These days Macau is bigger than Vegas: four times bigger to be precise. Last year gaming revenues from its 33 casinos hit a record high of ?14.7bn. In April they surged to a new monthly record of ?1.56bn - well above the entire annual takings for 2001. Accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that the yearly take could hit ?27.5bn by 2014.

　　Yet some of the shine has come off the industry recently. The government has vowed to rein in casino development; and US and Hong Kong regulators have launched inquiries into one of the big operators. Could the sector's long streak of luck be running out at last?

　　The overnight success of Macau's casino industry was more than a century and a half in the making. In the 1840s Portuguese administrators searched for new sources of revenue as foreign merchants and traders decamped to fast-developing Hong Kong.

　　"They effectively took up all the marginal and grotty jobs and trades " explains historian Jason Wordie: selling indentured labourers to Latin American mines and plantations; licensing brothels; and regulating gaming houses. Camilo Pessanha a Portuguese poet who lived in Macau for many years described it as "a material and moral rubbish heap".

　　But for the residents of Hong Kong and southern China the appeal was simple. "It was close enough to be accessible - and far enough away from prying eyes " says Wordie whose book Macau: an Exploration is out next year. "It was the same as today: for people keeping mistresses or gambling."