The Philippines Amusement and Gaming Corp. is considering opening the country’s land-based casino market to online wagering by Philippine citizens.
The government regulator/operator said various properties have requested the expansion as compensation for the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced the industry to shut down from mid-March to the end of August and has casinos currently restricted to 30 percent capacity and dealing with stringent social distancing and other health and safety measures.
While the industry is expected to bounce back once normal visitation levels return, the toll on operations so far has been severe. Belle Corp., a partner in Melco Resorts’ City of Dreams Manila and the first gaming company so far to report year-to-date results, said its revenues were down 96 percent through September compared with the same period in 2019.
PAGCOR, whose operations and taxes on the industry fund a variety of government projects and institutions, has also felt the impacts. At the height of the lockdown this summer its revenues plunged more than 95 percent.
Its revenue from offshore gaming operations, another major source of funding, have been hit hard as well. Of these 60 or so businesses, many of which are run by Chinese nationals, only around half have been permitted to reopen for safety reasons, and it’s reported that several have closed for good.
As a result, the sector’s Chinese employees are reported to be leaving the country en masse, and it’s sending shockwaves through the larger economy. According to a recent Bloomberg report, the exodus could send commercial and residential rents in Manila plummeting by as much as 25 percent before the year is out. Citing estimates by real estate services firm KMC Savills, the news agency said around 47,800 square meters of office space in the capital were vacated in the third quarter alone.
“We’ve seen entire residential towers emptied out,” the firm’s managing director, Michael McCullough, said.
