The state-run Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (Pagcor) reported net income of PHP3.2 billion (US$68.3 million) for the first nine months of 2015, up by 37.1 percent from the prior-year period. Pagcor said it was 24.6 percent ahead of its own PHP2.6 billion target for net income in the nine-month period.
Income from gaming operations stood at PHP32.6 billion in the nine months to September 30, up 45.6 percent from a year earlier. In the third quarter, income from gaming operations reached PHP10.8 billion, up from a year earlier but down 19.4 percent from the second quarter.
Total revenue for the first nine months of 2015 rose 18.7 percent year-on-year to PHP35.7 billion, Pagcor reported. For the third quarter alone, total revenue was PHP10.9 billion.
In its latest report, Pagcor said that total operating expenses for the first nine months of 2015 fell 5.5 percent year-on-year to PHP10.4 billion.
The state-run company, an operator of publicly-owned casinos as well as the regulator for the country’s entire casino industry, contributed a total of PHP22.1 billion to state funds in the first three quarters of the year. That is 32 percent ahead of its own PHP16.8 billion target for the period.
The contributions to the government included PHP15.4 billion directly transferred to the Bureau of the Treasury. Pagcor is required by law to pass at least 50 percent of its annual gross earnings to the government’s treasury bureau.
Cristino Naguiat, chairman of the country’s casino regulator, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp, had noted in a recent interview with the Philippine Star newspaper that gaming revenues were “still up” despite a run of poor results reported during the second quarter of 2015 from the three major private sector operators currently active in the Manila market.
