Competition to grow with new resort in Manila
Two casino resorts in the Philippines have followed losses in 2015 with a new challenge in 2016: lucky gamblers.
According to the Nikkei Asian Review, Bloomberry Resorts, operator of Solaire casino near Manila Bay, saw net losses wide to 1.15 billion pesos ($25 million) from 533.05 million pesos a year ago. Though VIP volume grew 22.4 percent VIP, gross gaming revenues fell 5.4 percent to 7.65 billion pesos in the first quarter. Net revenues were up 9.6 percent, however, due to almost 50 percent growth in non-gaming revenues, NAR reported.
Resorts World Manila, run by Travellers International Hotel Group, saw net profits topple more than 33 percent, with a decline in gross gaming revenues dropped of 13.59 percent “due to a decrease in win rate,” the company said in a May 16 stock exchange filing. But again, non-gaming revenues spiked by 25.78 percent.
Melco Crown’s City of Dreams Manila reported that net operating revenues nearly doubled to 4.53 billion pesos for the quarter, and casino revenues also doubled. Rolling chip win rates rose 2.8 percent and the gaming machine win rate was up 6.1 percent from 5.9 percent.
This year will see new competition in Manila’s Entertainment City with the expected opening of Kazuo Okada’s US$2 billion Manila Bay Resorts, as well as a new regime under President-elect Rodrigo Duterte, who will succeed Benigno Aquino.
Meanwhile, according to the New York Times, the recent cyber-heist of $81 million in funds from a Bangladesh bank that eventually was funneled through casinos in the Philippines may be part of a “broad assault on the global banking system” by hackers whose “digital fingerprints” are under scrutiny by analysts around the world.
In the Philippine attacks and another in Vietnam, the thieves obtained legitimate credentials to sign in to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or Swift network, which sends payment instructions between banks across international borders. The Bangladesh funds were withdrawn from an account in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which has been ordered to increase its security processes to avert future thefts.
The Philippines government has taken steps to bolster its own anti-money laundering regulations, in part by adding casinos to the list of entities subject to AML laws. “Weaknesses and loopholes in our legal frameworks breed risk; we intend to stamp these out as best we can,” Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said in a statement published by Reuters.
