The Philippine casino sector produced gross gaming revenue (GGR) of just under PHP56.01 billion (US$1.02 billion) in the three months to December 31, up by 13.5 percent from the third quarter. The quarterly tally was up 96.2 percent from a year earlier.
The figure excludes revenue from bingo operations, electronic games parlours and from “e-sabong” betting business, the latter involving cockfighting events presented online.
The latest data took the casino GGR tally industry-wide for full-year 2022 to just above PHP184.00 billion, up 90.6 percent compared to only PHP96.55 billion in 2021.
That is according to data released on Monday by the country’s casino regulator, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (Pagcor). The body does not provide commentary on the data.
The private-sector casino resorts in Manila’s Entertainment City produced about 78.7 percent of all industry GGR in the fourth quarter, i.e., just under PHP44.06 billion. The latter figure was up 15.2 percent quarter-on-quarter.
The cluster of commercial casinos in the Clark Freeport Zone, also on the country’s main island, Luzon, generated nearly PHP6.78 billion GGR in the fourth quarter, up 11.3 percent from the preceding three months.
At Pagcor-operated casinos, aggregate revenue in the three months to December 31 was just above PHP4.80 billion, up 4.3 percent from the preceding quarter.
Fourth-quarter non-VIP table games GGR reached just over PHP1.79 billion, up 1.1 percent from the previous quarter. Pagcor-run mass-market slot GGR fell by 1.2 percent quarter-on-quarter, to circa PHP2.34 billion.
For full-year 2022, the casino resorts at Entertainment City generated GGR of nearly PHP146.21 billion, accounting for 79.5 percent of all industry GGR for the period. Aggregate GGR for Pagcor-operated sites reached PHP15.79 billion last year, with more than half from mass-market slot machines, at nearly PHP8.47 billion,
The final quarter of 2021 had coincided with the easing of capacity restrictions in November that year, for the country’s casino sector, including at Entertainment City.
