Reports MARKET - GREECE
Te casino, Te Lynx, opened in November with an investment of €9m and is operated by a consortium including the Totti Group, a large snack company.
Te casino has 103 slots and 14 gaming tables and a hotel will open at a later date as part of a mountain resort venue offering 40 rooms.
Te casino was first licensed back in 1995 but never operated. It has taken 24 years of litigation with the Greek state plus a compensation payout to finally open its doors in November last year. Te casino is part of the Hotel and Casino Resort in the former Xenia region.
Meanwhile, the other casinos include Casino Syros (Aegean) which opened in 1997 and is located in Ermoupolis; Casino Rio, Achaia operated by Teros International Gaming; Casino Traki in Trace operated by Vivere Entertainment Commercial and Holdings; Casino Corfu operated by Greek Casino of Corfu; Porto Carras Casino, Porto Carra Tourist Technical Industrial and Casino Rodos which officially opened in 1999 and is managed by Queenco Leisure International, which is also involved in the management of Casino Loutraki.
Te casino has over 1,700sq.m in gaming space over two floors with 300 slots and 34 tables.
Casino Loutraki opened in 1995 and is located in Loutraki-Perachora municipality of Corinthia prefecture and attached to the Club Hotel Loutraki. It is a luxury five star hotel and casino resort on Loutraki beach offering 5,000sq.m of gaming on two levels with 82 tables and 714 slots, 35 electronic roulette and two VIP rooms.
Te hotel has 255 rooms and 18 suites. It is managed by a joint venture between Touristiki Loutrakiou, OTA, Club Hotel and Loutraki, Tourism and Hotel Enterprises (of which Queenco has a share).
Te casino at one time was the highest grossing casino in Europe with annual revenues topping €230m. But the financial crisis hit hard and revenues dropped with €54m revenues in 2017. With debts the company went through a reorganisation process and sued the government for overpayment of taxes.
Te 35 per cent rate it was paying is aimed at casinos in large urban areas and Loutraki argued the lower rate of 22 per cent (mostly applied to the islands) should have applied to their casino in a less populated area. It won the case, but has struggled financially since.
It was announced late last year that Irish investment company Comer Group is involved in talks to buy the Loutraki casino by acquiring the shares held by the two major Israeli shareholders.
P116 NEWSWIRE / INTERACTIVE / MARKET DATA
John Kyriakides, Managing Partner at Kyriakides Georgopoulos Law Firm
John Kyriakides is the Managing Partner at Kyriakides Georgopoulos Law Firm. KG was established 85 years ago and is a multi practice business firm with extensive experience in providing legal services to the gambling industry on regulatory compliance and corporate matters.
www.kglawfirm.gr j.kyriakides@
kglawfirm.gr
“Te Invest in Greece Law puts an end to the temporal nature of the Greek online gaming licensing framework, according to which things seemed to be in an indefinite “transitional phase”, with 24 temporary licence holders offering online gaming. Te temporary licensees have further assigned their right to offer services for online games of chance to sub-licensees, who are not explicitly recognised by the Greek Authorities and relevant legislation, but seemed to be implicitly “tolerated” during this transitional phase.
Te forthcoming changes include decisive legislative steps on the matter, by clarifying the legal status of the licence holders and by establishing a new legal framework. In a nutshell, Articles 190-204 of the law contain provisions regarding the provision of two different types of licences with a seven year duration, the granting of which will cost €3m for online betting games and €2m for the rest types of online games (article 196 par. 5 of the Invest in Greece Law). Every candidate can apply for both licences, provided that he satisfies all the requirements and, of course, pays the relevant price.
Moreover, an open licensing procedure for online gaming under the exclusive competence of the Greek State is foreseen.
Tat means that the current provision for an international tender is abandoned. No maximum number of licences is foreseen. Prerequisite for obtaining a licence is to have a permanent residence or a registered establishment in Greece or in another Member State of the European Union or the European Economic Area.
Licences are granted by the HGC and the websites must have the suffix ".gr", similarly to the L. 4002/2011 regime. Furthermore, the successful provisions of L. 4002/2011 are maintained, such as the existence of an electronic Player’s Card and the HGC’s “black list” of companies operating without a licence, while, on the other hand, new terms are introduced, such as provisions about affiliates, a matter which wasn’t dealt at all under Law 4002/2011. As an “affiliate” is construed whoever cooperates with licensees in order to promote certain games and must place links in prominent places of their websites.
It is also provided that the general restrictions posed in every other type of commercial communication, according to Article 35 of Law 4002/2011, are also applicable to affiliates. Beyond doubt, the new legislation will inspire trust in the providers of online gaming services and will regulate the gaming market in a more efficient and fair way.”
In a nutshell, Articles 190-204 of the law contain
provisions regarding the provision of two different types of licences with a seven year duration, the
granting of which will cost €3m for online betting games and €2m for the rest types of online games (article 196 par. 5 of the Invest in Greece Law).
GREEK CASINO FIGURES CASINO
Aegean Casino Casino Rio, Achaia
Loutraki Casino Regency, Parnitha Porto Carras
Rhodes Casino
Lynx Casino, Florina TOTAL
263
Regency, Thessaloniki 768 Casino Thraki, Thrace 176 Corfu Casino
91
696 707 281 281 103
*ERT – Electronic Roulette Terminals. *ER – Electronic Roulette.
NO OF NO. OF ERT* 0
38/16/2 63/24/2 20/8/1 15/16/2 67/35/2 65/38/2 29/8/1 31/12/1 14
TURNOVER GGR 2017
SLOTS TABLES/ER* 2017 57
€7.61m €46.3m
€1.55m €9.92m
€457.3m €70m €31.5m
€6.69m
€26.3m €5m €373.2m €54.8m €523.6m €82.4m €17.4m €98.5m -
€2.7m
€20.3m -
3,423 342/157/13 €1.58bn €253.5m
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