South Korea’s government may create three additional licenses for resort casinos in and around the country’s main gateway for overseas visitors at Incheon.
Yeongjong Island, about 30 kilometers southwest of Seoul and the hub of the government-sponsored Incheon Free Economic Zone surrounding Incheon International Airport, will be the locus of the expected investment, according to a new report issued by investment bank Standard Chartered.
“Our checks with officials and industry participants suggest that Yeongjong Island will be the center stage for IR project development. We expect an additional two to three casino IRs to form a cluster with the two current projects,” said the report’s authors, Tyler Ahn and Philip Tulk.
Paradise Group, South Korea’s largest operator of foreigners-only casinos, plans to break ground in November on the first of the zone’s IRs, a US$1.7 billion joint venture with Japanese pachinko giant Sega Sammy slated to open in 2017 with 750 hotel rooms, sizable non-gaming attractions in the form of restaurants, shopping and other amenities and a casino with 160 table games and 340 machine games.
Paradise expects the new property to generate annual revenue of KRW400 billion (US$381 million) in its first year, with 25 percent coming from non-gaming activities, according to a report by investment brokerage Daiwa Capital.
US casino giant Caesars Entertainment also is approved for a casino in the Incheon zone and is planning an $800 million destination in partnership with Indonesia’s Lippo Group. Plans call for a first-phase opening in 2018.
South Korea is home currently to 16 casinos restricted to foreign passport holders—of which Paradise owns five—and one in the remote northeastern province of Kangwon that is open to Koreans.
