Grand Lisboa Palace

Grand Lisboa Palace is the Cotai flagship of SJM Resorts, the operator behind the famous Grand Lisboa on the peninsula. While its older sister property sits in the heart of downtown Macau, Grand Lisboa Palace was built for the Cotai era: a full integrated resort with hotels, a casino, dining, weddings and events, all on one site. If you are planning a visit to Macau's casino strip, here is what the resort offers, where it sits and how it came together.

Location: Cotai, next to the East Asian Games Dome

Grand Lisboa Palace sits in Cotai, the reclaimed land between Taipa and Coloane, adjacent to the Macau East Asian Games Dome¹. That address puts it in the same neighborhood as the other big Cotai integrated resorts, the cluster that includes The Venetian Macao, Galaxy Macau and MGM Cotai. Cotai itself is often described as Macau's version of the Strip, and the resort's position on the southern end of the territory keeps it close to the action⁴.

The site is large: over 70,000 square meters, with more than 90 percent of the land set aside for non-gaming uses when the project was announced⁵. That ratio tells you a lot about what the resort is. Like its Cotai neighbors, Grand Lisboa Palace was designed as a destination in itself, with hotels, restaurants and event space doing as much work as the casino floor.

If you are coming from the Macau Peninsula, where SJM's older properties are, the resort is a straightforward trip across the bridge or through the tunnel to Cotai. SJM's complimentary shuttle network, covered below, links the two sides of the territory.

The three hotel towers and 1,892 rooms

The resort's accommodation is split across three hotel towers: Grand Lisboa Palace Macau, Palazzo Versace Macau and THE KARL LAGERFELD, planned with about 2,000 rooms in all. Each tower has its own identity:

The two branded towers are the resort's signature. Palazzo Versace Macau was unveiled in April 2024, adding the fashion-house tower to the lineup⁷. THE KARL LAGERFELD began serving guests in its first phase by the end of 2021, when the resort counted 576 hotel rooms in operation across the property².

The scale is worth putting in context. When the project broke ground in February 2014, the plan called for three hotels with about 2,000 rooms⁵. The final count of 1,892 rooms and suites lands close to that original figure, and puts Grand Lisboa Palace in the same weight class as Wynn Palace, which has 1,706 rooms, suites and villas, though below the giant of the strip, The Venetian Macao, with its 2,841 standard suites⁸.

Casino: gaming tables and slot machines

The casino at Grand Lisboa Palace opened with the rest of the first phase in July 2021. By December 31, 2021, it was running 150 gaming tables and 677 slot machines². The government had approved 150 tables for the opening, with press reports at the time suggesting the application covered nearly 270 tables in total, a figure the regulator never confirmed.

Those numbers are a long way from the original blueprint. When the project was announced in 2014, the plan was for a gaming area of about 27,000 square meters with roughly 700 gaming tables and 1,200 slot machines⁵. The more modest opening reflected the times: the launch came during a period of tight travel restrictions, and a conservative start was expected initially, with more tables to be added when the time was right.

The opening plan itself shifted as the date approached. SJM's chief executive said in May 2021 that the resort would launch with 260 mass tables and one hotel tower of 650 rooms, with 44 VIP tables to follow in 2022 when the Versace-branded hotel opened⁹. In the event, the VIP halls were held back for the third quarter of 2021.

What you will find on the floor is the standard Macau mix: baccarat dominates, as it does across the territory, alongside other table games and banks of slot machines. For a sense of how the games themselves work, see our guides to baccarat, blackjack and the slot machines found in Macau's casinos. If you are a visitor rather than a resident, the entry rules are the same here as everywhere else in Macau, and they are covered in our page on casino entry rules.

Dining, weddings, retail and other facilities

The non-gaming side of the resort was planned from the start, and it shows in the facilities list. The project includes a wedding hall for banquets and celebrations, flexible multi-function halls, several top restaurants and other dining options, a luxuriously designed casino and a range of leisure and entertainment facilities¹⁰. The wedding venue, marketed as a banquet destination, is one of the features that sets the resort apart from a pure gaming house.

By the end of 2021, the resort had nine restaurants and other dining facilities in operation². More dining, shopping and leisure facilities were slated to open in phases, alongside the two branded hotel towers⁶.

Retail took longer than the rest. Management indicated in 2021 that the retail side of the property might not see business until the end of 2021 or 2022⁹. The resort has also kept expanding its cultural and events offering: SJM announced plans to add two new event spaces at Grand Lisboa Palace, and in the first half of 2025 it planned to launch a resident show and a permanent art gallery at the resort¹¹.

For a resort that set aside more than 90 percent of its site for non-gaming use, that steady build-out of dining, retail, events and culture is the point⁵. Grand Lisboa Palace is designed to work as a venue for weddings, conferences and shows, not only as a place to gamble.

How the phased opening unfolded

Grand Lisboa Palace took a long road from groundbreaking to opening. The ground-breaking ceremony was held on February 13, 2014, with the resort expected to open in 2017⁵. By 2017 the first phase of construction was under way, with the project located on the Cotai strip between Taipa and Coloane, and an opening hoped for that year¹².

The timeline kept moving. Construction was completed at the end of 2019, and the company planned to begin operations in the second half of 2020¹³. That did not happen either: by May 2021, the resort was still waiting for its occupancy permit and approvals from the Macao Government Tourism Office and the gaming regulator, a process the company estimated would take another four to eight weeks⁹.

The first phase finally opened on July 30, 2021, with a ceremony to mark the occasion⁶. The opening covered the resort's largest hotel tower, Macau Grand Lisboa, along with restaurants, leisure facilities and convention and event space⁶. The company hoped to open the whole project by the end of 2021, though a conservative start was expected initially given the unstable pandemic situation in mainland China.

The phased approach mirrors the history of SJM's flagship on the peninsula: the original Grand Lisboa also had a phased opening, beginning in February 2007¹¹. In Grand Lisboa Palace's case, the phases continued well past opening day, with the Palazzo Versace tower arriving in April 2024⁷ and the cultural facilities following in 2025¹¹.

Getting there: SJM's complimentary shuttle buses

The easiest way to reach Grand Lisboa Palace is the free shuttle bus. SJM runs a complimentary shuttle service connecting Grand Lisboa Palace Resort to various entry ports and prime locations in Macau¹. The same network links the resort to SJM's peninsula properties, so the shuttle also offers easy access between the resort and Hotel Lisboa in the Central District¹.

This is standard practice across Macau: free shuttle buses arranged by the casinos are available at all the border crossings and at some tourist hotspots, so arriving visitors can generally ride to a resort without paying¹⁴. SJM's network connects all of its hotels and integrated resorts to transportation hubs and borders¹⁵.

A few practical points for a first visit:

• The shuttles are free, and you do not need to be a hotel guest to use the casino routes in Macau, though schedules change, so check the current timetable before you travel¹.
• If you are staying at or visiting SJM's peninsula properties, such as the Grand Lisboa, the shuttle between the two sides of the territory is the simplest link¹.
• The resort's contact details, if you want to confirm anything before you go: phone (853) 8881 8888, email info@grandlisboapalace.com³.
• The official website is grandlisboapalace.com, which carries current information on the hotels, dining and facilities⁶.

For the wider picture of how to move between Macau's resorts, including the other operators' shuttle networks, see our guide to getting to and around Macau's casinos, and for the territory's other gaming venues, our overview of casinos in Macau.