G3-247 Report INDIA
A licence fee of Rs5 crore is required which lasts five years plus an annual royalty fee of Rs1 crore ($200,000) or 10 per cent of the GGR (increased to 15 per cent by the third year) whichever is higher is also paid.
CASINO SIKKIMis located at the Royal Plaza Hotel in Gangtok and was Sikkim’s first casino to open in 2009 and is a luxury hotel located above a river valley. It is part of the Sarovar Hotels and Resort chain which is one of the third largest hotel chains in India. The hotel has a total of 78 rooms. The casino is located on the first floor and opens from 6pm until 4am and has table games and slot machines.
CASINO MAHJONGis located at the Mayfair Spa Resort and opened in 2011 and is owned and managed by Trio Ventures which is a company started by three entrepreneurs from Gangtok. The resort is located in a green forest and surrounded by mountains offering fam- ily rooms, cottages and villas. The casino is spread across an area of 7,000sq.ft and has 15 gaming tables and poker room with gaming tables and a VIP room and slots. The company paid Rs5 crore for the five year licence and Rs3 crore was spent setting up the facility.
GOA Similarly Goa is also thriving thanks to tourism brought in from gambling. The state is India’s smallest state in terms of area and fourth smallest by population.
It is located in West India in the region known as Konkan on the Arabian Sea. It is India’s richest state with a GDP two and half times that of the country as a whole.
The capital is Panaji and the region is still culturally influenced by the Portuguese who first landed there in the early 16th century as merchants and later conquered the land. It was annexed by Indian in 1961.
spreading of socially unacceptable material which included anything relating to money laundering or gam- bling.
This put a spanner in the works as the Reserve Bank of India also refused to allow payment gateways to gam- bling websites. It was also suggested that no other oper- ators applied as many are afraid of repercussions from illegal bookies.
But things continued. In August 2009 amendments were added and the Sikkim Online Gaming (Regulation) Amendment Bill 2011 was passed. This basically permit- ted sports betting and approved games such as football, cricket, tennis, golf and horse racing. However to offer sports betting a gambling licence is also required by the government of Sikkim.
The period for such a licence is five years requiring a Rs5 lakh application fee (around $10,000).
In addition, the success of the national Playwin lottery has been astounding and today it is largely accepted as the main national lottery of India. It has also brought a huge amount of revenue into the state.
Goa is renowned for its beaches, places of worship and world heritage architecture and
although at one time the capital Panaji was a neglected area in terms of tourism, now it is
economically in a good position.
The state also has two casinos. The first was opened 2009 at the Hotel Royal Plaza in Gangtok followed by a casino in Hotel Mayfair in 2002.
The Sikkim Casino Games (Control and Tax Rules) 2002 grants licences to casino operates in the state whilst the Sikkim Regulation of Gambling (Amendment) act 2005 gives the government the authority to authorise casinos.
The law only authorises casinos in five star hotels and having had only a one party rule for the last 10 years has not faced any serious political opposition to these rules.
Tourism is the primary industry and it handles 12 per cent of all foreign tourists in India. In 2010 the area saw two million tourists of which 1.2 million were from abroad.
Goa is renowned for its beaches, places of worship and world heritage architecture and although at one time the capital Panaji was a neglected area in terms of tourism, now it is economically in a very good position.
The off shore casinos emerged after restrictive laws pre- vented land based casinos being developed. Nothing was mentioned about hosting casinos on the water so casinos began to open onboard ferries which float out- side the city of Panaji in the waters of the River Mandovi.
It is said around 30 per cent of people who fly into Goa are gamblers. Goa alone accounts for 95 per cent of the Indian gambling pie and the state government takes around Rs100 crore in taxes.
Business began in 2001 when the first offshore casino, Casino Caravela, opened its doors with 14 tables and for the last five years the casino market has grown by around 40 per cent each year.
The Mandovi River is now home to India’s largest casi- 6 3
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