Cypriot Tender Down to Three Casino Groups
Cyprus has whittled down its tender list from a total of 12 major companies from the USA, Philippines, Cambodia, Russia and France that formally expressed their interest in the Cyprus licence and paid €10,000 each for the option to bid
Te Cypriot Parliament approves legislation to grant the Republic of Cyprus’ first legal casino, with the tender process expected to conclude shortly
CYPRUS CASINO LICENCES
March 10 saw the Cyprus’ House Plenum approve the regulations for the first completely legal casino in the Republic of Cyprus with 28 votes in favour, one against, and 16 abstentions. Te minimum requirements are 100 tables and 1,000 machines and the successful bidder could immediately start operating a casino for a 30 year-period, with the tender winner due to be announced imminently.
Te Cypriot government whittled down the list of 12 casino tenders to just three who will make it through to the final stage of its tender process. Bloomberry of the Philippines and Naga Corp of Cambodia have made it through along with a consortium including Melco Entertainment of Macau and Hard Rock of the United States.
Te operators have submitted their final plans for consideration including the location and the details behind their project. Under the framework, the winning bidder will have to build a holistic integrated resort, the first of its kind in Europe. It will feature 500 hotel rooms, plus a casino with more than 1,000 slots and 100
table games. Te group will be granted a 30-year casino license with an exclusivity period of 15 years. However, a challenge has already been made by a candidate not accepted in the tender, the Goldenlady Consortium, which has lodged a complaint about the licensing tender process and has called on Auditor General Odysseas Michaelides to intervene.
A total of 12 major companies from the USA, Philippines, Cambodia, Russia and France had formally expressed their interest in the Cyprus licence. Tese casino operators paid €10,000 each for the option to bid. According to reports one of the short-listed bids proposed an investment of €450m, the other two offer €250 million, while whereas Goldenlady’s bid was for a €1.15bn investment.
Te winning operator will have the option to develop, in addition to the ICR, up to four satellite casino premises, in districts other than the one where the ICR will be located. Each will be licensed for the operation of up to 50 gaming machines per location.
Isle of Man
Isle of Man – ORYX Gaming has teamed up with B2B gaming software provider Booming Games to offer online casino operators access to its extensive portfolio of content. ORYX Gaming jumped on the opportunity to offer Booming Games’ slots, which have proven immensely popular with more and more players all over the world.
Te Booming Games portfolio currently features over 50 original games, and they are constantly increasing that number with the addition of five new slots each month. Many of these games include completely original game features, like Te Rotator, which awards players multiple win chances with amazing gameboard animations.
Intralot to merge with Gamesnet in the Italian gaming market
Italy
Intralot is to merge its Italian operations with that of Gamesnet to form one of the largest operators in the Italian gaming market.
Intralot Group and Trilantic Capital Partners Europe, the controlling shareholder of Gamenet, confirmed they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to merge the Italian activities of Intralot into those of Gamenet.
Following completion of the
transaction, Intralot will control around 20 per cent of the combined operations., which will comprise approximately 800 betting POS, that will continue to use Intralot’s brand name, 8,200 VLTs, over 50,000 AWPs and more than 60 directly owned and managed gaming halls.
Intralot CEO Antonios Kerastaris said: “Since acquiring a betting operator license in Italy in 2007 and at a later stage VLT and AWP licenses, Intralot has established a strong presence in one of the largest and most competitive gaming markets in the world.”
Gamenet CEO, Guglielmo Angelozzi, added: “Tis is a strategic step for us, as we were seeking size and diversification to complement our vertical integration programmes. We look forward to capture all the synergies from this combination and seize all the opportunities available in the market in the next years.”
IRELAND – The centerpiece of the Alfastreet stand at the Irish Gaming show was the six-station electronic Roulette R6, part of the company's compact range, which is delivering excellent results in Irish venues. Two multigame stand alone units, the Alfastreet I.Q. Multigame, were shown combining a brand new slot cabinet with a selection of classic table games, such as roulette, poker variants, Baccarat, Dragon vs Tiger and Black Jack.
The demand from Irish operators is high and the company is discussing the possibility of connecting multiple machines with its online gaming platform across several venues. These features are considered an important upgrade for the popular electronic gaming halls, vastly widening accessibility for the target audience. There is also great anticipation for the upcoming slot machine range to be added to the island, with the first installation in selected locations scheduled in a few months time.
POLAND – The Supreme Administrative Court of Poland has ruled that casinos acting as a taxpayer must calculate, collect and pass on to the Polish tax authorities personal income tax on all tips received by employees from casino customers. Casinos Poland described the announcement as ‘unfavourable news.’
Peter Hoetzinger, President of Century Casinos, which owns 66 per cent of Casinos Poland, said: “The verdict is final, but we have not yet received the written justification. That will be issued by the court within about two or three weeks. That ruling, stating that tips are part of the salary of our casino employees could also have negative consequences on certain Social Security charges of Casinos Poland. The exact financial impact including a potential write-off of the goodwill we have on our books for Casinos Poland is not yet known and is being analysed by our tax advisors. It is really bad news and could lead to a significant one-time hit to our income statement in the first half of this year. But we will move on and focus even more on operating and profit margin development at all nine properties of Casinos Poland.”
GIBRALTAR – Lottoland has appointed Gavin Grimes as VP of Gaming. Mr Grimes follows in the footsteps of other recent key appointments, including Rob Fell as VP of Product and Lucky Multani as Chief Operating Officer.
Lottoland specialises in offering licensed and regulated betting on the outcome of major lotteries worldwide and Gavin joins them after previously working as Head of Casino at Gala Coral Interactive. Gavin has spent 17-years working in online gaming, with prior roles including Head of Social Gaming at Gala Coral, Managing Director of marketing agency McBroom and Head of Marketing at Cantor Index.
NEWSWIRE / INTERACTIVE /
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