Author: Admin VietNamGaming

Việt Nam

Sands president says Londoner to become instant icon

Posted on by Admin VietNamGaming

01-10-2020 |  

Sands China opened its $1.9 billion “The Londoner” on Monday, providing a vote of confidence in the Macau market’s recovery.

In an opening ceremony, Sands China President Wilfred Wong paid tribute to company Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson who died last month and whose vision transformed Macau’s Cotai strip. He also said he believed the Londoner would become another icon for the gambling hub.

“Like The Venetian and The Parisian before it, The Londoner Macao will become an instant landmark on Cotai, with unmistakable design features like the Houses of Parliament and the 96-metre-tall Big Ben,” he said. “And seeing the Changing of the Guard will be a must-see experience just as taking a ride with a singing gondolier is at The Venetian Macao.

“The Londoner project is a 1.9-billion-US-dollar investment into Macao and demonstrates our faith in the future of the city. It is part of our continuing contribution to the transformation of Macao into a world centre of tourism and leisure.”

The property is a revamp of Sands Cotai Central into a London-themed resort. On Monday, the company unveiled the first phase featuring a Victorian-style glass atrium, dubbed Crystal Palace. It also introduced new dining options, interactive London-themed attractions, and the opening of The Londoner Hotel – an all-suite tower featuring approximately 600 luxury suites. Other attractions will be rolled out during the course of 2021.

The opening comes at a delicate time in Macau’s recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. Visitation had been improving strongly over the Christmas and New Year holidays, but has tailed off into February due to increased restrictions on the Mainland due to new virus clusters.

Analysts who follow the market are expecting the Chinese New Year holiday to be lacklustre this year, with Beijing actively urging its citizens to stay at home.

It also comes as Beijing steps up its efforts to target overseas casinos that seek to woo its nationals. Although the warnings are not thought to refer to Macau, the junket sector is likely to be in the cross hairs further restricting the VIP market.

Analysts still expect a strong recovery in the second half of 2021 as vaccines are rolled out and travel restrictions are eased.

Monday’s opening ceremony was attended by high level government officials from both the Mainland and Macau, including Edmund Ho Hau Wah, Vice Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference; Mr. Lei Wai Nong, Secretary for Economy and Finance of the Macao SAR; Ms. Yan Zhichan, Deputy Director of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Macao SAR.

The ceremony also included a tribute to Sheldon Adelson, the company’s founder who passed away last month.

Source: AGBrief 

Tin mới
Tin khác
To Top

Việt Nam

Wynn upgraded to “neutral” at Citi on premium mass strength

Posted on by Admin VietNamGaming

01-10-2020 |  

Wynn Resorts was upgraded to “Neutral” from “Sell” at Citi due to optimism over the company’s premium mass business in Macau after it reported better-than-expected Q4 results last week.

Although VIP still represents a significant portion of the group’s earnings in Macau, Citi analyst George Choi said the company will generate an increasing amount of its EBITDA from the premium sector, which will also improve its earnings quality.

Premium mass has higher profit margins that the VIP business.

Bernstein also noted that the future for the company lies in its premium mass business and Wynn has been making changes at its properties to take full advantage of the sector.

The firm said Wynn has changed some of its food offerings and has also changed the configuration of high-end suites to create more entertainment spaces for small events.

Although Wynn’s management has said it does not expect the VIP sector to go away completely, analysts warn the segment has been structurally weakened.

“The VIP market will see less players (especially smaller players) in the future,” Bernstein said. “There will not be a quick VIP recovery as seen in the late 2016-2017 timeframe.”

The VIP business had already been suffering from the impact of U.S./China trade tensions even before the pandemic struck. In addition to these two factors, Beijing has declared war on the illegal cross border movement of money for gambling, which will have a direct impact on the junket sector.

Wynn reported $39 million in EBITDA for its Macau properties in Q4, compared with a loss of $112 million in the prior year. The results beat expectations and analysts said they would have been better still had luck not worked against the company. Hold was lower than normal in both the VIP and mass sectors.

For Chinese New Year, management has said that it’s expecting visitation levels closer to the October Golden Week holiday than over the busy Christmas period due to renewed virus clusters in China.

Beijing has also urged its nationals to stay at home and not to travel either overseas or within China to avoid taking Covid-19 back to rural villages.

Source: AGBrief

Tin mới
Tin khác

Việt Nam

Komeito loses its pro-casino voice

Posted on by Admin VietNamGaming

01-10-2020 |  

This week a fresh scandal, unrelated to IR development, stripped the ruling coalition Komeito Party of its only lawmaker who was proactively and vocally in favor of casino legalization. This represents an indirect but still distinct blow to the industry’s future prospects at the national level.

There were two related missteps that terminated the career of Kiyohiko Toyama within Komeito, the influential party that remains the de facto political wing of the Buddhist lay organization Soka Gakkai.

First, he was caught by a weekly magazine visiting a hostess bar late at night during the Covid-19 state of emergency, violating the rules that the general public had been advised to respect at the very height of the lethality of the pandemic. Second, it emerged soon afterward that he had included on his official political funding reports as “dining out expenses” his past visits to hostess bars.

Toyama had always seemed to be in the wrong political party, and this time it cost him dearly. Had he been a member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)—the outfit whose spirit he seemed a better match for—neither of his mistakes would likely have represented more than a temporary setback.

The LDP takes a much more easygoing attitude about personal corruption, and one can indeed argue that graft has been near the heart of the ruling party since its very beginnings in 1955, when some of its leaders were directly on the payroll of the US Central Intelligence Agency due to their “anti-Communism.”

But that’s very much not the case with the religion-oriented Komeito, and the nature of Toyama’s transgressions led to his resignation not only from the party, but from the House of Representatives altogether.

For years Toyama had stuck out prominently as the most “LDP-like” Komeito lawmaker. When, in 2015, then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe moved to pass security legislation that most scholars argued was unconstitutional, it was Toyama who jumped up and vocally supported the government line. Likewise, when the IR legislation was proposed, Toyama emerged as the only vocal advocate within the party.

Other than Toyama, other Komeito lawmakers were either opposed to casino legalization—in line the view of the majority of its Soka Gakkai political base—or reluctantly in favor so as not to antagonize the LDP, their ruling coalition partner.

Toyama, however, was positively enthusiastic. When Komeito finally established its own IR Project Team in July 2017, it was no surprise that Toyama was made the leader of the team. He was also the only Komeito lawmaker that would make appearances at industry events such as the Japan Gaming Congress. It would be hard to even imagine any other politician from his religion-backed party going up on stage to publicly advocate for casinos.

There is a certain poetry about the fact that it turned out to be his attraction to alcohol, ladies, and nightlife that brought about his political fall.

In the short term, Toyama’s fall is not likely to exercise any major impact on IR development in Japan—though with his Kyushu electoral district he probably would have been helpful to Nagasaki’s candidacy.

Longer term, though, it might make a difference. The Komeito party is unlikely to see anyone like him for a long time. His fall represents another weakening of the central government’s will to confront the public on the IR development issue, following the much heavier blow of the bribery case of former Senior Vice-Minister of the Cabinet Office Tsukasa Akimoto.

The IR development process is still being pushed forward by the insistent administration of Yoshihide Suga.

Source: AGBrief 

Tin mới
Tin khác

Việt Nam

Wynn Resorts operating revenues down 58.5% in Q4

Posted on by Admin VietNamGaming

01-10-2020 |  

Wynn Resorts has published its fourth quarter 2020 and full year financial results, headlined by a 58.5 percent year-on-year decrease in operating revenues.

Operating revenues came to a total of US$686 million for the quarter. Net losses attributable to the company were US$269.5 million.

Matt Maddox, CEO of Wynn Resorts, offered the following statement: “We are encouraged by the progress we have made at each of our properties over the past several months, as we continue along the road to recovery from the pandemic. In Macau, the gradual and thoughtful easing of visitation restrictions allowed us to return to Adjusted Property EBITDA profitability in the fourth quarter, with particular strength in our premium mass business.”

Turning to US developments, he added, “our operations at both Wynn Las Vegas and Encore Boston Harbor were resilient as we continue to deliver our industry-leading service, while remaining focused on costs. On the development front, our WynnBet online casino and sports betting app is currently available in three states following successful launches in Colorado and Michigan, with additional launches planned over the coming months.”

For the year 2020, operating revenues decreased 68.3 percent to US$2.1 billion.
Net losses attributable to the company reached US$2.07 billion.

Operating revenues from Wynn Palace were US$221.5 million for Q4, a 62.5 percent decrease from 2019. Adjusted Property EBITDA from Wynn Palace was US$28.7 million. VIP table games win as a percentage of turnover was 1.97 percent, below the property’s expected range of 2.7 to 3.0 percent. Table games win percentage in mass market operations was 21.6 percent.

Operating revenues from Wynn Macau were US$181.9 million in the same period, a 65.4 percent decrease from 2019. Adjusted Property EBITDA from Wynn Macau was US$10.7 million for the fourth quarter of 2020. VIP Table games win as a percentage of turnover was 3.10 percent, above the property’s expected range of 2.7 to 3.0 percent. Table games win percentage in mass market operations was 17.9 percent.

Wynn’s cash and cash equivalents as of December 31, 2020 totaled US$3.48 billion. It’s available borrowing capacity under the Wynn Macau Revolver was US$343.5 million, and available borrowing capacity under the Wynn Resorts Finance Revolver was US$117.9 million.

Total current and long-term debt outstanding at December 31 was US$13.07 billion, comprised of US$6.35 billion of Macau related debt, US$3.12 billion of Wynn Las Vegas debt, US$2.99 billion of Wynn Resorts Finance debt, and US$612.3 million of debt held by a retail joint venture.

Source: AGBrief 

Tin mới
Tin khác

Việt Nam

HKJC pins hopes on simulcasts to stem illegal gambling

Posted on by Admin VietNamGaming

01-10-2020 |  

The Hong Kong Jockey Club said the government’s decision to allow extra simulcast days during the summer racing lull will help curb the illegal gambling that has threatened to undercut its revenue in recent years.

The government will allow the club to broadcast 14 more days of racing from overseas meetings into Hong Kong, taking the total number of days to 37.

It will simulcast during July and August, allowing people in Hong Kong to bet on races even though there is no local racing at that time.

“During the summer break of Hong Kong’s racing, it is the peak season of overseas racing particularly in Europe, and the illegal and offshore bookmakers have taken advantage of this time gap to lure Hong Kong people to place bets on overseas races.”

“As such, the approval of extra simulcast days in the summer will effectively address the existing illegal gambling issues while at the same time generate additional betting duty as well as charities donations, and create additional job opportunities which will benefit the Hong Kong community as a whole,” a Club spokesperson said.

“In addition, the Club believes that the offering of simulcast betting on overseas races in summer will further strengthen Hong Kong as a racing hub. Racing jurisdictions worldwide will also welcome this new initiative for the promotion of globalisation of horse racing.”

The HKJC has long been battling against illegal gambling, which it says has been growing at twice the speed of legal wagering, with an estimated $140 billion in illegal wagers placed each year.

The first quarterly bulletin from the Asian Racing Federation’s Anti-illegal Betting Taskforce in July last year warned that the Covid-19 pandemic had exacerbated the problem. As sports and illegal betting was disrupted, the illegal operators were ready to fill the gaps.

This was particularly prevalent in racing, as it was one of the few sports that was able to continue. The HKJC created a racing “bubble” and was able to hold meetings at its tracks throughout the year, though without the audience.

As a result, the HKJC recorded its third-highest turnover ever during its 2019-2020 season at HK$121.6 billion (US$15.8 billion) through 87 local meetings and the simulcast of 164 overseas races.

While local betting turnover was down 8.3 percent, overseas turnover rose 25.3 percent to reach HK$23.5 billion, showing the value to the club of its simulcast and commingling programs.

Source: AGBrief

Tin mới
Tin khác

Việt Nam

Star Entertainment to benefit from Crown woes

Posted on by Admin VietNamGaming

01-10-2020 |  

Star Entertainment is likely to benefit from expected delays to Crown Resorts’ ability to open a casino in Sydney and its current share price presents a good buying opportunity, J.P. Morgan said in a report.

The firm said it has upgraded its rating on Star to “overweight” due to three main drivers. The company has plans to reduce debt, the competitive environment in Sydney is favourable given likely delays to Crown’s license and its loyalty program and streamlined operating model will boost margins.

Rival Crown opened its new property in Barangaroo in Sydney in December, but was not permitted to operate the casino pending the results into an inquiry into its suitability. The results of that report are pending publication in the next two weeks and J.P. Morgan says it expects a temporary finding of “unsuitability” with risks persisting into 2022.

The firm said Star’s share price is trading at a significant discount to Crown on a price/earnings basis at 19.3 x compared with 26.

It said it expects management to continue to reduce Star’s cost base and capex levels to position itself into FY22 and sees an attractive runway for earnings post-COVID-19.

Both companies are expected to report their results for the first half of fiscal 2021 on Feb. 18.

J.P. Morgan points out that operating leverage and cost management have been key focus areas for Star’s management in 2020 and previous years and these efforts are likely to bear fruit in the upcoming results.

The firm said Sydney continues to feel the pinch from pandemic-mandated restraints, but overall group domestic revenue is likely to be around 75 percent of the previous calendar year.

“We model total table revenues of $191.5 million in 1H21,” it wrote in a report. “While this is a 37.8 percent decline vs the pcp, we are modelling a 31.6 percent increase sequentially vs 2H20.”

Source: AGBrief 

Tin mới
Tin khác

Việt Nam

Paradise January sales reverse improving trend, drop 36.2%

Posted on by Admin VietNamGaming

01-10-2020 |  

Paradise Co. reported its casino sales in January declined 36.2 percent from the prior month, after seeing strong improvement in December.

The company, which operates four foreigner-only casinos in South Korea, said total sales in the month were KRW27.28 billion (US$24.5 million), down from KRW42.7 billion in December. The figure was down 61.8 percent from the same month in 2019.

Paradise said table game revenue was down 38.4 percent to KRW25.48 billion, while machine revenue declined 28.7 percent to KRW1.79 billion.

Like its peers in South Korea, the company has been hit by a tightening of restrictions due to renewed outbreaks of Covid-19 across the country.

Paradise briefly closed its Walker Hill property in mid-December as a result of the measures, but kept its Busan, Incheon and Jeju resorts open. Kangwon Land, which is the only casino allowed to permit locals, has extended its closure to February 14 and out of the country’s three operators is the one that has kept its doors closed for the longest. Grand Korea Leisure’s three properties will also remain closed until February 15.

Paradise doesn’t comment on trends in the monthly release of its figures, but in the past has said that expatriates living in South Korea have helped it eke out revenue even in the absence of foreign tourists.

The latest measures to control the virus would likely have more of an impact on non-gaming facilities, which can be frequented by locals. There is a ban in the greater Seoul area of gatherings of more than four people, while bars and restaurants are required to close at 9 pm.

Meetings at clubs and karaoke lounges are banned.

Prime Minister Chung Sye-Kung announced last weekend that these stricter measures would remain in place until mid-February due to concern over people getting together to celebrate the Lunar New Year holidays, which begin on February 12.

Source: AGBrief 

Tin mới
Tin khác

Việt Nam

Google Play allows gambling apps for Australia, New Zealand, and Japan

Posted on by Admin VietNamGaming

01-10-2020 |  

It has been announced that the Google Play app store will begin, effective March 1, allowing real money gambling apps to become available in fifteen additional countries, including Australia, New Zealand, and Japan in the Asia-Pacific region.

Previously, such apps were available only in Brazil, France, Ireland, and the United Kingdom

Google’s support page specifies four gambling categories that may be allowed in some jurisdictions: online casino games, lotteries, sports betting, and daily fantasy sports. Developers of these categories of apps will need to fill out a special application form and to ensure that their app has an International Age Rating Coalition (IARC) content rating.

The apps allowed in the store will also, naturally, have to be legal in the jurisdiction. None of the Asia-Pacific countries, for example, will allow online casino games at this juncture, and only Australia will permit apps related to daily fantasy sports.

To take the example of Japan, real money gambling apps related to horse racing, motorboat racing, bicycle racing, bicycle racing, and lotteries will now be allowed, presumably meaning that only a few apps like a JRA gambling app might soon become available.

Google Play offered only the following comment on its policy alteration: “We’re updating our Real-Money Gambling, Games, and Contests policy so more developers around the world can build sustainable businesses, and in a way that helps keep consumers safe.”

The immediate impact of the Google Play expansion of gambling apps into the Asia-Pacific region will likely be limited due to the illegal nature of online gambling in most of these jurisdictions, but it does appear to be laying down an important part of the technological infrastructure should laws change in the future.

Source: AGBrief 

Tin mới
Tin khác

Việt Nam

Covid creates opportunity to lobby for India regulation

Posted on by Admin VietNamGaming

01-10-2020 |  

States in India may be more receptive to legalizing casinos and potentially considering hybrid models following the Covid-19 pandemic, however centralized regulation is key to developing the industry.

That was the view of panellists at a recent SBC India digital conference focused on gambling in India.

At present casinos are only permitted in two states — Goa and Sikkim in the far north. Sikkim has three operating casinos in five-star hotels, while Goa has six offshore casinos in the Mandovi River and about 10 five-star hotels offering electronic gaming machines. Live table games are not permitted in Goa’s hotels.

Online skill-based gaming is permitted on a state-by-state basis.

However, the pandemic has left governments facing large fiscal deficits at both the state and national levels as revenues have shrivelled at a time when aid spending has increased. As a result, there is more potential for change.

“If you had asked me this before March of 2020 I would have said absolutely no,” independent legal advisor Jay Sayta said, when asked whether authorities would consider allowing land-based companies to offer some kind of online gambling. “Government would not have been receptive to the industry as a whole, but after Covid, the world has changed in many ways.”

“Even other state governments are exploring this and are keen to see how casinos can boost taxes and employment and tourism. They are more receptive to a better level than before.”

Ratul Sethi, operations director at Golden Gaming, which operates a casino in Sikkim, said he believed the state would be open to hybrid models, but proper regulation is lacking.

The panellists agreed that one of the key issues facing progression of the gambling industry in India is the fact there is no national level legislation, with individual states making their own decisions.

“The Union government has to recognize this as an industry,” said Kalyan Gudladana, founder of Tykhe Gaming, a Bangalore-based casino equipment developer. “Unless they do you cannot regulate. Licensing has happened in bits and pieces. Goa legalized, then Sikkim followed suit but at a national level the recognition of this as an industry is pending.”

That said, now is seen as the time for the industry to aggressively lobby for change as it has a more willing ear than prior to the crisis. Sayta said there needs to be a continuous dialogue and education process about the economic potential that can be generated.

Sayta pointed to the example of Goa, which he said prior to the opening of the casinos was a highly seasonal destination, with no visitation during the monsoon. It is now a year round choice, which has created significant growth in the tourism industry there. It has also created more than 10,000 direct and indirect jobs, while the casinos have been major contributors to charity and welfare initiatives.

Although the panellists all agreed that other states should open up to casinos, Gudladana doubted it would be possible unless the decision was taken at the Union level.

India has the potential to be one of the biggest casino markets in Asia, with a fast-expanding middle class increasingly willing to spend on travel and leisure.

A 2019 report from Bain & Co. forecast India’s economy will grow at a base rate of 7.5 percent annually until 2030, with 500 million moving into the middle-and-high income bracket in that time. While Covid-19 will undoubtedly lead to a revision of such estimates, the economy has already seen a strong bounce back and the International Monetary Fund is predicting 11.5 percent growth this year.

However, there is a major caveat for any international operators eager to take advantage of the market potential. The casino sector is on a banned list when it comes to Foreign Direct Investment, which is likely to be another limiting factor even if other states do decide to host casinos.

India’s casinos were forced to close from March last year through to November due to Covid-19 mandated lockdowns.

Since reopening, Goa’s casinos are back to business as usual, albeit with strict social distancing measures in place. However, Sikkim is still struggling as there is a 9pm curfew in place, forcing casinos to close during the busiest period.

Source: AGBrief 

Tin mới
Tin khác

Việt Nam

Macau January GGR performance better than expected

Posted on by Admin VietNamGaming

01-10-2020 |  

Macau’s gross gambling revenue dropped 63.7 percent in January, better than analysts had been expecting after renewed Covid-19 clusters on Mainland China slowed visitation later in the month.

Gross gambling revenue totalled MOP8.02 billion ($1.0 billion), according to figures released by the Gambling Inspection and Coordination Bureau.

Bernstein Research said the consensus forecast had been for a drop of 67 percent compared with January last year. The firm said the end result was also better than its expectations after downward revisions

Average daily revenue came in at MOP259 million, that’s 3 percent higher than in December.

“The month continued to be negatively impacted by visitation bottlenecks due to visa processing and Covid test requirements and by weakness in VIP volumes,” Bernstein said.

Premium mass was the best performing segment, while base mass continues to be hampered by low levels of visitation.

Bernstein is expecting reduced numbers to Macau over the next few weeks, as Beijing continues to enforce localized lockdowns due to new cases of Covid clusters.

The Chinese government has urged citizens to stay at home over the key Chinese New Year period in an attempt to stop the spread of disease.

Despite the latest hiccup on the road to recovery, Bernstein is still optimistic about the outlook for the second half of the year as Covid constraints are eased. It expects GGR to increase to two thirds of the 2019 level in 2021, which would be up 225 percent from 2020.

For the month of February, the estimate is for a drop in the mid-to-high 60 percent.

The real catalyst for improvement in Macau visitor numbers is likely to be when China returns to same-day digital processing for individual visit schemes, it adds.

Despite the low visitation numbers, analysts are expecting the majority of Macau’s operators to report positive EBITDA for the final quarter of the year after slashing their operating expenses.

The first results came in last week, with Las Vegas Sands reporting adjusted EBITDA for its Macau operations of $47 million in Q4. It’s a big decline from the $811 million the prior year, but still back in the plus side of the balance sheet.

That performance was led by the Venetian and the Plaza Macau and Four Seasons. The Parisian reported an adjusted EBITDA loss of $7 million. The remainder of the companies will report in coming weeks.

Source: AGBrief 

Tin mới
Tin khác