State-backed Grand Korea Leisure has announced that it is once again extending the Covid-related business suspension of its two Seoul casinos, this time to March 15. The firm now estimates that the closures which have continued since November 24 will cost the company KRW42.78 billion (US$38 million) in lost casino revenue.
With continued and future disruptions on land-based casino revenues, industry executives are asking whether online casino platforms, which have seen rapid growth rates, can play a role in assisting stalled revenue lines and help them move beyond these difficult times.
Hong Kong-listed R&F Properties is seeking new financing and a casino operator partner for the Midan City development in Incheon, attempting to recover from Caesars Entertainment’s abandonment of the partnership.
In this April edition of Asia Gaming Briefings we take the pulse of how the North Asia jurisdictions of Japan, Korea and the Russian Far East have fared.
The world is bouncing back, or at least coming to grips with the fact that going forward not much will be the same as before. Commendably, this industry quickly understood the need to adapt to a new normal, and that the days of targeting the low hanging fruit of the VIP sector are gone.
Over the years, many of the answers have been remarkably prescient in their forecasts for the near-term direction of Asia’s gaming industry. However, we can safely say that no one came anywhere close to guessing what 2020 may have had in store.
