Philippines 1Q casino GGR up 15pct q-o-q to US$627mln

The Philippine casino sector produced gross gaming revenue (GGR) of PHP32.75 billion (US$ 626.9 million) in the three months to March 31, up by 14.8 percent from the previous quarter. The tally rose 27.2 percent in year-on-year terms.

That is according to data released this week by the country’s casino regulator, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (Pagcor).

The casino GGR figure excludes revenue from bingo operations, electronic games parlours and from “e-sabong” betting business, the latter involving cockfighting events presented online.

The private-sector casino resorts in Manila’s Entertainment City produced about 82.1 percent of all industry GGR in the first quarter, i.e., PHP26.89 billion. The figure was up 12.9 percent quarter-on-quarter. It represented an increase of 27.3 percent in year-on-year terms.

The cluster of commercial casinos in the Clark Freeport Zone, also on the country’s main island, Luzon, generated PHP3.01 billion GGR in the first quarter, from PHP2.30 billion in the preceding three months.

At Pagcor-operated casinos, aggregate revenue (excluding in-house bingo) in the three months to March 31 was PHP2.60 billion, up 17.1 percent from the preceding quarter.

First-quarter table games GGR at Pagcor-run casinos reached PHP808.2 million, up 20.3 percent from the previous quarter. Slot GGR rose by 14.2 percent quarter-on-quarter, to PHP1.64 billion.

The improvement in GGR performance in the first quarter of 2022 coincided with an easing of COVID-19-related restrictions. From March 1, Metro Manila was placed under “alert level 1”, the lowest level of countermeasure against Covid-19, which allowed business to operate at full capacity.