The Philippine casino sector produced gross gaming revenue (GGR) of PHP56.61 billion (US$1.00 billion) in the second quarter, down 4.5 percent sequentially. The tally rose 23.4 percent from the prior-year period.
That is according to data released on Tuesday by the country’s casino regulator, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (Pagcor).
The casino GGR figure excludes revenue from bingo operations and electronic games parlours.
The private-sector casino resorts in Manila’s Entertainment City produced about 76.8 percent of all industry GGR in the three months to June 30, i.e., PHP43.47 billion. The figure was down 4.3 percent in quarter-on-quarter terms, but up 17.5 percent from a year earlier.
The cluster of commercial casinos in the Clark Freeport Zone, also on the country’s main island, Luzon, generated PHP7.86 billion GGR in the second quarter, down 5.2 percent sequentially. The tally was 65.5-percent higher year-on-year.
At Pagcor-operated casinos, aggregate revenue (excluding in-house bingo) in the quarter to June was just below PHP4.91 billion, 3.7-percent lower compared to the preceding quarter. It was up 29.6 percent from the second quarter of 2022.
A fortnight ago, state-run Pagcor reported net income of about PHP2.97 billion for the first half of 2023, up 37.3 percent from a year ago. For the second quarter, the agency’s net income stood at PHP1.63 billion, compared to PHP1.34 billion in the first three months this year.
Pagcor said in a statement in July that the country’s gaming industry generated GGR of PHP136.37 billion in the first half of 2023, up 48.7 percent from a year earlier. The figure included revenue from bingo operations and electronic games parlours.
Alejandro Tengco, chairman and chief executive of Pagcor, was quoted in that announcement as saying that the agency was projecting that the Philippine gaming sector could generate at least PHP272.74 billion in annual GGR for full-year 2023.
