Wire ASIA & OCEANIA
Crown Retains Melbourne Licence
Despite the enormity of its findings, the Finkelstein Royal Commission has recommended Crown be permitted to continue operating in Melbourne.
Crown Melbourne has retained its Victorian Casino licence following a comprehensive transformation of its business that has seen the operator invest $200m since 2021, introducing extensive reforms across harm minimisation, financial crime, governance, compliance, risk, and culture, which has been accelerated under new ownership and management.
Guest wellbeing and harm minimisation has been at the forefront of the transformation, resulting in the implementation of initiatives at Crown Melbourne. Te Victorian Gaming and Casino Control Commission said it was 'clearly satisfied that Crown Melbourne is suitable to operate the Melbourne Casino and that it is in the public interest that the Licence continue in force.'
Te full Commission decided that Crown Melbourne has addressed the failings identified by the 2021 Royal Commission into the Casino Operator and Licence. Commission Chair Fran Torn said that the Royal Commission detailed how Crown Melbourne had breached its legal, social and moral obligations, resulting in illegal
Australia
Te second inquiry into Star Entertainment Group’s suitability, which will be overseen by Adam Bell, the man who previously deemed the operator unfit to hold a casino licence for its Sydney casino, will be held primarily in public.
Te findings of the first Bell inquiry included serious misconduct and compliance failures including with internal control manuals, misleading and deceptive conduct and a corporate culture that fell significantly short of what was expected.
Following the Bell Review, the NICC suspended the Star’s licence indefinitely and appointed Nick Weeks as independent manager of Te Star to give Te Star an opportunity todemonstrate that it was suitable or was capable.
activities, tax avoidance, money laundering, criminal associations, and significant harm to vulnerable community members, ultimately finding Crown Melbourne unsuitable to hold the Melbourne Casino Licence.
“Despite the enormity of its findings, the Finkelstein Royal Commission recommended Crown be permitted to continue operating under stringent independent oversight conditions for two years, determining it had the will and capacity to transform itself to again become suitable, which would be to Victoria’s benefit,” she said.
Te Victorian Government responded decisively to the Royal Commission’s findings, appointing a Special Manager to oversee Crown Melbourne’s operations and remediation and established the VGCCC as a new regulator focussed solely on the gambling industry and created a specific set of enhanced powers with respect to the Melbourne casino. Commissioner Torn said the Special Manager’s final report concluded that Crown Melbourne has remediated the failings exposed in the Royal Commission.
Macau 30 per cent growth spurt for Macau over 2024
Analysts at CBRE Institutional Research are predicting that Macau's casino sector will grow by a further 30 per cent this year as the mass market sector continues to boom. It is predicting GGR of US$28bn in 2024 and US$29bn in 2025.
CBRE's Colin Mansfield and Connor Parks said: “Tis year, visitation and gaming revenue should grow by nearly 30 per cent and level-off closer to China GDP- type growth thereafter. Te growth should be primarily driven by further improvements in mass market visitation, which can also support property-level margins. De-leveraging will be a by- product of EBITDA growth.”
Tey praised Macau’s casino operators for doing a 'good job' with transforming their former junket rooms into new premium
mass gaming floors and shifting the market focus from VIP to mass gaming which they see as a 'long-term positive.'
"Te mass market has essentially returned to 2019 levels and now accounts for 90 per cent of total gross gaming revenue. We see further upside in the segment since visitation still is 10 per cent below 2019 levels.
“Te additional visitation should help operators optimise hotel yield and take advantage of newer supply directed at premium mass customers that has opened since the pandemic. Operators have done a good job of repositioning old junket rooms into gaming parlours and selectively growing direct VIP business. Overall, we view the submission of the VIP segment as a long-term positive,” CBRE added.
THE PHILIPPINES– Foreign and domestic investment of $6bn and the opening of up to nine new casino resorts should see the Philippines' casino sector reach GGR of $8bn to $9bn by 2027, taking it ahead of revenues generated by Singapore's casino sector. This year, licensed casinos from the Entertainment City, Metro Manila, Clark, Cebu and the Fiesta Casinos in Rizal and Poro Point are expected to contribute as much as Php256.63bn to the 2024 GGR.
PAGCOR (Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp) Chairman, Alejandro Tengco, said: "If Singapore doesn’t expand, they will plateau. Don’t be surprised if next year we will surpass them. We will have continued growth because of the opening of new casinos and the expansion in the electronic gaming segment. We have about five to six years to fortify and solidify so when they open, we are mature already."
Speaking at the ASEAN Gaming Summit, he highlighted that at least one new casino-resort will be unveiled every other year in Manila, Boracay, Clark and Cebu. Last year the Philippines casino market generated a record 285bn pesos. Chinese visitation to the Philippines fell to just 15 per cent of 2019 levels last year with players from Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore, along with Philippine nationals, stepping up in the absence of Chinese VIPs. The aim is to attract 7.7 million foreign tourists in 2024, following just 5.45m last year.
Expecting gaming revenues to sustain growth this year and beyond, Chairman Tengco added: “We will also have at least one new IR opening every other year starting with Solaire North in Quezon City which will open its doors in the first half of 2024, followed by another new IR in Clark, with several more in the pipeline including one in Cebu."
THAILAND - A study by a panel of lawmakers, due to be submitted to parliament this week, has concluded that Thailand could increase tourism revenue by US$12bn if it were to introduce resort style casinos. The report states that average tourist spend could increase by 52 per cent to reach $1,790 per trip fuelling growth in the country’s gross domestic product by 1.16 percentage points.
The report may prompt the House of Representatives to push ahead with a bill to legalise casinos and other forms of gambling. The panel of lawmakers was led by Deputy Finance Minister Julapun Amornvivat who recommended a number of safeguards to prevent problem gambling.
“The goal is to establish a comprehensive entertainment venue and to promote tourism in a new way to increase income for the country and solve the problem of illegal gambling,” he said.
WIRE / PULSE / INSIGHT / REPORTS P19
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