Casino sales rose 38.3 percent month-on-month in October, to KRW19.81 billion (US$117.6 million) at the Jeju Dream Tower resort in South Korea, said its promoter Lotte Tour Development Co Ltd in a Wednesday filing to the Korea Exchange.
In September and August, casino sales had fallen sequentially at the property on Jeju, a semi-autonomous island that is host to a number of foreigner-only casino properties.
Lotte Tour noted that its casino sales are calculated net of commissions paid to agents, and therefore differ slightly from sales data for the industry as compiled by South Korea’s Casino Association.
October’s sequential casino sales gain at Jeju Dream Tower coincided with an 8.6 percent month-on-month growth in the volume of people visiting its casino (pictured), to 30,582, according to other materials issued by Lotte Tour. The additional material mentioned table game hold percentage was 12.9 percent in October, from 12.7 percent in September.
Table-game sales accounted for most of the October casino sales. They amounted to KRW18.53 billion, up 41.0 percent on September.
October’s machine-game sales tally was KRW1.28 billion, an increase of 8.2 percent month-on-month. Hold in machine games was up 3.2 percentage points month-on-month, at 9.8 percent.
In October last year, casino sales had been only KRW3.27 billion, so this October’s performance was up 505.9 percent year-on-year.
Hotel sales were up 17.1 percent sequentially in October, to just under KRW9.27 billion. Judged year-on-year, such sales were down 13.6 percent.
The October data took casino sales for the first 10 months of the year, to KRW120.17 billion, up 213.8 percent from the same period in 2022.
The latest figures show the casino table drop amount – i.e., customer purchases of chips for table games – was just under KRW143.45 billion for October, up 38.3 percent sequentially.
For the first 10 months of 2023, such table drop was just over KRW1.03 trillion, a year-on-year rise of 177.9 percent.
