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Manila Bulletin devider Business devider COVID-19 to hit Pagcor revenues

COVID-19 to hit Pagcor revenues

Published Mar 11, 2020 12:00 am
By CHINO S. LEYCO The country’s casino gaming and entertainment facilities are taking the hit from travel restrictions imposed by the government to contain the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) said yesterday. Andrea D. Domingo, Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) chairman and chief executive, said that gross gaming revenues (GGR) is plunging by around 30 percent to 40 percent since February this year. “It’s not meeting its target,” Domingo told reporters, noting the ₱290 billion GGR goal may likely be missed this year. Pagcor is targeting the industry’s revenues to grow by 11 percent from ₱260 billion in 2019. The Pagcor chief said that the most affected in the local gaming sector are the junket operators, or companies engaged in luring wealthy foreign players, who are mostly Chinese and Korean nationals, to gamble in the Philippines. Domingo said that following the travel restrictions imposed on foreign arrivals, revenues from junket operations — accounting for 60 percent of large-scale casino complexes or integrated resorts’ (IRs) GGR — plunged. “Right now, the only ones who are meeting their targets are the ones operating tables and slot machines. On junkets, they’re declining by about 50 percent since February. In the IRs, we never experienced this but they are beyond their targets,” Domingo said. Offshore gaming operators’ GGR is also impaired by the COVID-19 outbreak after banking operations in China, Macau and Hong Kong were impeded by the disease, she said. But despite the weak GGR of Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs), Domingo said that their royalties to be paid to Pagcor will remain the same because it is pegged to the scale of their operations. For 2020, Pagcor expects about ₱8 billion in revenues from POGOs. Domingo, meanwhile, said that of the 60 POGO licensees by Pagcor, five of them are already non-operational and another one is about to close up shop as the COVID-19 outbreak continues to take a toll on its business. For Pagcor alone, she said that their revenues from their own gaming operations were short by at least ₱5 billion. Amid the weaken gaming income, Domingo said it will negatively affect Pagcor’s contributions to the national government, particular to the universal health care (UHC) program.
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