A gambling company from Malaysia plans to create a project that is posing to be the biggest casino in Miami. Having spent approximately $450 million on real estate alone, the project vows to help rebuild a section of an interstate highway and has hired 23 lobbyists to push for a new law in Florida.

The purpose of Genting Bhd.’s campaign is a $3.8 billion casino resort project of six towers, 50 restaurants, as well as a shopping mall which will be overlooking Biscayne Bay. However, at the moment, Florida only allows casino gambling operations within resorts that are operated by Indian tribes as well as slot-machines found at racing tracks.

The land purchase and lobbying seem to have been useful for those who have always been hoping to find more casinos within the region, but there are many who fear that such a project may be pushing the boundaries too far and may eventually drown out any plans to expand on the local gambling scene.

In October, lawmakers in Florida came up with a bill that would allow three new casinos in Miami-Dade and Broward County — a bill that had raised the hopes for Genting in being able to acquire the license that it needs to operate. Now, another gambling company from Las Vegas also plans to enter the region but feels that three casinos would be too much for the area and hopes to have things revised to add less than three instead.

Genting has definitely taken the opportunity to bring their expansion into the United States as more locations have been more open to the idea of having casinos to help with the on-going budget deficits as well as unemployment concerns.

There are political and business leaders in Florida who feel that the company’s high profile campaign could fire up the opposition — including social conservatives as well as the interest of other business operations such as Walt Disney and the Florida Chamber of Commerce. Nevertheless, the outcome of Genting’s campaign has yet to be seen.

Naturally, having no financial restrictions has allowed Genting to have an advantage over the opposition as it has acquired holdings in a variety of industries which have allowed them to make $3.4 billion in profit over the last year with $15 billion in revenue, according to recent reports.

Competitors were definitely stunned when the company had made a statement about the $236 million cash purchase made on the waterfront headquarters of the Miami Herald with the intention of building the casino resort on the property. And after four month, the company had also seized control over the $206 million mortgage on the property adjacent to the first acquisition which then gave the project twice the initial footprint.

Given the situation, many feel that such acquisitions could very well be the first time that any project has undertaken such real estate purchases without even first being granted the authorization for their intended vision.

Genting has definitely gone all out with their plans and has mentioned that they will be creating thousands of job opportunities within the region where the unemployment rate is currently at 10.7 percent.

But all of these promises do not eliminate the fact that people continue to question the size and it impact that the casino resort is going to have in the region and all of the operations that take place in it. Of course, Genting — with its financial power — has taken on a strategy which only goes to show the real power of money in this day and age.

Regardless of all the speculations, people from Genting do believe that there is great value in the decision to take on South Florida as the home for the massive casino resort project.