First come online operations
The Philippines has launched yet another gaming jurisdiction, reports GGRAsia. The so-called Aurora Pacific Economic Zone and Freeport Authority—APECO for short—is eight hours by road from Manila, home of Entertainment City and its cluster of mega-casinos including City of Dreams Manila, a Melco Crown development, and Solaire, a Bloomberry resort. Two more giant gaming resorts will open there in the near future: Resorts World Manila, a Genting property, and Manila Bay Resorts, a project of Kazuo Okada’s Universal Resorts, which is on track to open in December.
The 12,500-hectare (30,888-acre) APECO zone will focus on the online gaming sector to start, said Victor Lazatin, president and CEO of Pacific Seaboard Leisure and Entertainment Corp., the master licensing agent.
“It’s easier to set up,” he said. “And then later on we’ll go into land-based casinos.”
The new gaming jurisdiction is located in the northeastern part of the country’s main island, Luzon, in Casiguran, Aurora province. It is part of an economically underdeveloped part of the region, GGRAsia reported.
Pacific Seaboard has a 25-year exclusive contract for online gaming and land-based licenses issued by APECO. It will screen and vet the applicants and handling the financial and legal aspects of applications. Decisions on licensure will be the jointly handled by Pacific Seaboard and APECO.
APECO will charge US$40,000 per year for an interactive gaming license, plus a levy of 2 percent of licensees’ gross win per month, or a US$5,000 minimum levy per table per month, whichever is higher.
No limits have yet been placed on the number of licenses up for grabs, or minimum investments for the licensees.
“The land-based casinos are going to be part of the ecotourism development of APECO, so we will go hand in hand with Pacific Seaboard in promoting that,” said APECO President and CEO Israel Maducdoc. “We’ve already been talking to a few (investors) that are interested in setting up some hotels and casinos there.”
Lodging and entertainment facilities will be added over time on the San Ildefonso peninsula, and an expansion of a port in the zone is said to be underway and will cater to international trading. The port will open in mid-2017.
APECO is about 270 kilometers (168 miles) from the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority, where master licensor First Cagayan Leisure and Resort Corporation is authorized to issue both online and land-based gaming licenses.
