Without a doubt, this year, 2022, has seen the casino industry flourish in the Philippines at an unprecedented pace. It started from the casino resorts, moved towards integrated resorts and coming in closely are the online casino games that are also kicking up a storm with their expansion.
The new year coming, 2023 will still be seeing new integrated resorts and casinos opening up in several areas of the country — not just in major cities in Luzon. There is a fearless forecast among peers in the industry that the GGR will reach the level of USD 10 billion by 2027 — this is still a conservative figure to say the least — doubling its revenues in just five short years. These came from analysts that hail from GCG Gaming Advisory Services, an Asia-Pacific consultancy firm.
The Prediction in Detail
The analysts at the GCG Gaming Advisory Services did not only rely on 2022’s figures but traced back how the casino industry was performing back during the pre-pandemic days of 2019. The 2019 level reached GGR USD 5 billion. They are expecting this to happen next year with an increase projected from USD 3.9 billion to USD 4 billion. This projection is based on the company’s third-quarter 2022 market report for the Philippines.
Furthermore, the casino industry will be in full swing and see a market boom with the full opening of NUSTAR, Emerald Bay in Cebu, Solaire Casino in Cavite, Solaire North in Quezon City and the official launch of Westside City in Paranaque by 2025. Creating an, even more, stronger projection to this mix are the expansion projects at the Hann Casino and the Royce Casino in Clark, Pampanga.
A representative at GCG Gaming Advisory Services digressed, “The Philippines enjoys a strong local market, a strong ex-pat community (Korean, Chinese, Taiwan, Japan) and fully open international borders.”
“Strong regulations, the introduction of PIGO and new airports in Cebu and Clark all indicate that the Philippines will be competing with Singapore for the top GGR position over the next few years.
“We expect the Philippines to increase to an annual GGR of 10 billion dollars in the full year 2027.”
Third Quarter Revenues: 2022
Further adding to the details, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (PAGCOR) reported GGR from licensed casinos of PHP 117.0 billion (2.04 billion dollars) for the first 9 months of the year, with the third quarter involving PHP 44.8 billion (781 million dollars).
Also, the entire industry’s GGR — including that of PAGCOR-managed casinos and “other licensed” casinos — totaled a whopping USD 1.04 billion in the third quarter. This is commendably the highest quarterly figure since the fourth quarter report of 2019 when the GGR was USD 1.31 billion.
Unfortunately, the report that PAGCOR provided didn’t include a differentiation between the GGR generated in Manila and the other areas of the Philippines for the September timeframe. It’s a good thing that GCG Gaming Advisory Services has a bit of news on this matter. They reported that Cebu‘s first integrated resort and NUSTAR resort and casino achieved gross gaming revenue (GGR) of about USD 20 million from opening. These resorts just recently opened in May 2022 with a full opening for the second half of 2023 up ahead and on schedule. Their main gaming area is fully operational and open to the public but most of the VIP areas are still under construction.
You might also want to read: NUSTAR Launches VIP Gaming Area
To cap off their report, a representative at GCG Gaming Advisory Services added: “We can take the best estimate that the Clark casinos contributed approximately USD 110 million (in Q3), NUSTAR in Cebu USD 20 million and the two Fiesta casinos USD 8 million.”
Good to see that the integrated resorts are on the right track and going strong! It’s a piece of reassuring news that things are slowly getting back to how normal was albeit in a revised manner. I’d like to see how NUSTAR will be when it finally completes its facilities. Any thoughts on which would be the best among the lot? Just comment below and let us know your insights. Until the next piece of news.
