The Philippine casino sector produced gross gaming revenue (GGR) of PHP45.89 billion (US$824.2 million) in the three months to June 30, up by 40.1 percent from the previous quarter. The tally rose by 144.2 percent in year-on-year terms.
That is according to the latest quarterly data released this week by the country’s gaming regulator, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (Pagcor). The body does not provide commentary on the data.
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 80.6 percent of all industry GGR in the second quarter, i.e., PHP37.01 billion. The figure was up 37.6 percent quarter-on-quarter. It represented an increase of 152.3 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 PHP4.75 billion GGR in the second quarter, from PHP3.01 billion in the preceding three months.
At Pagcor-operated casinos, aggregate revenue (excluding in-house bingo) in the three months to June 30 was PHP3.79 billion, up 45.4 percent from the preceding quarter.
Second-quarter table games GGR at Pagcor-run casinos reached PHP1.32 billion, up 63.6 percent from the previous quarter. Slot GGR rose by 28.6 percent quarter-on-quarter, to nearly PHP2.12 billion.
The sequential improvement in GGR performance in the second 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.
Daniel Cecilio, chief of the licensing and regulatory group at Pagcor, said last week he expected the country’s gaming industry revenue to recover to its pre-pandemic levels by 2026 or even overtake this level. That was because player confidence was slowly returning to the sector, he stated.
