PAGCOR chief: More money to be made
Andrea Domingo, head of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp., believes the country will lose big if its current ban on new casinos is permitted to stand. She is asking the author of the ban, President Rodrigo Duterte, to rethink his order to suspend new gaming licenses.
“There are still areas in the Philippines that can still absorb and benefit from these investments, which won’t go here with the current ban,” Domingo told Bloomberg.
In October 2018, according to CalvinAyre.com, Duterte ordered the shutdown of all casinos operating on the holiday island of Boracay, including an integrated resort planned by Galaxy Entertainment Group and Leisure Resorts World Corp. Also last year, Duterte fired the board of Landing International on the same day the members broke ground on a $1.5 billion theme park and IR in Paranque City.
Duterte has often expressed his contempt for gaming as an industry. Last summer, he said, “I’m not issuing any franchise for gambling in the entire Philippines now. It’s a moratorium. I hate gambling.”
At the same time, reported GGRAsia, the Philippine gaming sector is hoping to attract more Chinese travelers, benefiting from the trade war between China and the U.S. Earlier this month Japanese brokerage Nomura said it expects to see accelerated GGR growth from now until at least 2020 for Bloomberry Resorts Corp., which runs Solaire Resort and Casino in Manila’s Entertainment City, thanks in part to more Chinese tourists. Data shows that such inbound tourism was up 30 percent year-on-year for the first 11 months of 2018.
Domingo also said 2018 gross gaming revenues in the Philippines grew to about PHP200 billion (US$3.79 billion), growing 13 percent year-on-year. She estimates 8.5 percent growth, to PHP217 billion for 2019.
