Gaming revenues seen to hit $2.5 B

MANILA, Philippines - State-run gaming firm Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) said it expects the 100-hectare Entertainment City,  touted  to become the Philippines’ version of the Las Vegas strip, to  account for 90 percent of the projected $10 billion total gaming revenues at full development.

In a briefing yesterday, Pagcor chairman Cristino Naguiat Jr. said the Philippines has the potential of eventually having one of the biggest gambling industries in the world with the operation of all four gaming proponents in Entertainment City, a vast complex along a reclaimed land in Manila Bay. 

For this year, Naguiat said he sees the country’s gaming revenues hitting $2.5 billion, mainly due to port magnate Enrique Razon’s Solaire Manila Resorts, which opened on March 16, and the improved operations of other gaming hubs.

Naguiat said Solaire, the first of four huge gaming complexes to rise on Entertainment City, chalked up revenues of P1.3 billion as of May or only two and a half months since it started operations.

“The Philippines is on the radar of foreign investors.  They’re bullish on the Philippine gaming industry as evidenced by the huge attendance of foreign fund managers and international gaming players in several conferences overseas where we had been invited to talk,” he said.

Naguiat said many foreign investors now consider the Philippines as a serious contender for the premium Asia-Pacific gaming market mainly through Entertainment City, which is expected to attract at least a million tourists annually and capture 10 percent of the global gaming market.

“We expect more foreign investors to our country as we see more proponents  setting up shop. We intend to open one integrated resort per year until 2016 or 2017.  After Solaire, the casino venture of Melco and Belle will be next with the expected opening in October next year and the group of Japanese businessman Kazuo Okada by the first quarter of 2015 ,” Naguiat said.

Travellers International Hotel Group, a joint venture between Malaysia’s Genting Group and real estate tycoon AndrewTan,  is also expected to open its integrated resort, Manila Bayshore, by 2016 or 2017. 

The development of Entertainment City is in line with Pagcor’s strong  commitment to the government’s program of making tourism one of the main engines of economic growth and hitting the  national target of 10 million tourist arrivals by 2016.

Gaming revenues currently come  from 13 relatively small casinos throughout the country  run by the government, and a bigger one in Manila operated by  the Travellers Group.

Standard & Poor’s Rating Services sees  the Philippine gaming industry rising “higher than gross domestic product (GDP) levels” in 2013, benefiting from the improving operations of  casino operators in Asia-Pacific.

According to S&P, gaming operators are expected to make multi-billion dollar investments in several new integrated casino resort projects over the next few years, mainly in Macau and the Philippines.”