The Philippines gaming market for gaming machine manufacturers (EGMs) is much more complex than it first appears, and while opportunities are still there – as new properties come online and focus expands beyond Metro Manila – it’s not all sunshine and rainbows.
“The expectation is almost immediate success,” notes gaming veteran Chris Wieners – managing partner at gaming and marketing group HOGO.
“You’ve got a lot of people trying to pitch to get into this market, because it’s exploded”.
With dozens of casinos just within the Metro Manila area, focused on Entertainment City, the executive notes that, from an EGM provider standpoint, “there is a major saturation of properties there”.
Wieners points out that the operators that have been in the market for some time have seen that revenue per machine has been “steadily dropping at individual properties, because there’s this massive concentration of machines that are being introduced into the market”.
This means that “the indexes that we (manufacturers) have to compete against or succeed against are very tough. Everybody wants to enter the Philippines”.
The Philippines is “not Macau, it’s not the United States […] what works in the Philippines doesn’t work necessarily in other places”.
This comes down to figuring out the math, game components, game mechanics and features which need to be “written specifically for the Philippines.”
To do this “you’ve got to have the bandwidth, the team, and the knowledge to be able to go in and work well in that market”.
But timelines are key, “the expectations are high […] (many manufacturers) don’t have the ability, like in some other markets, to trial things. There, we (manufacturers) need them (operators) more than they need us at the casino”.
For manufacturers breaching the Philippine market, there is still high interest to trial or lease games, but less focus on outright purchases. This is particularly important as new entrants need to prove they will remain, provide support and feedback, and new games – as operators hoping to purchase cabinets want to ensure they can update them with new products. IP is particularly important, as games from different manufacturers (in regulated markets) are not played on a competitor’s cabinets.
The negotiations on how revenue is shared, fixed prices are negotiated and purchase agreements work comes down to the individual contracts. But don’t think that just showing up to the market with a product, even if it’s stellar, means instant money in the bank.
