Grand Korea Leisure Co Ltd (GKL), a foreigner-only casino operator in South Korea, saw casino sales in August increase by 7.3 percent month-on-month, to approximately KRW33.39 billion (US$25.3 million), the company said in a Monday filing to the Korea Exchange. The latest monthly tally was up 45.8 percent from the prior-year period.
During August, table-game sales were nearly KRW30.19 billion, up 8.6 percent sequentially and up 48.4 percent from a year ago. Machine-game sales were just below KRW3.21 billion, down 3.7 percent month-on-month but 25.3 percent higher than a year earlier.
Grand Korea Leisure’s casino sales for the first eight months this year totalled nearly KRW272.56 billion, an increase of 86.4 percent from the prior-year period.
Grand Korea Leisure runs three foreigner-only, Seven Luck-branded, casinos. Two are in the capital Seoul, including in Gangnam, and one in the southeastern port city of Busan. The company is a subsidiary of the Korea Tourism Organization, which in turn is affiliated to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.
In August, Grand Korea Leisure’s Seoul Gangnam Casino and Seoul Dragon City Casino were the two gaming venues that contributed the most to the company’s casino sales, according to data published separately on Grand Korea Leisure’s official website.
Of the KRW33.39 billion in casino sales achieved in August, a total of just above KRW14.72 billion came from Seoul Gangnam Casino, while close to KRW14.3 billion were generated from Dragon City Casino in the South Korean capital, the data shows.
The company’s cumulative drop – the amount of money paid by customers to purchase chips – reached nearly KRW2.13 trillion for the first eight months of 2023, up by 107.1 percent year-on-year, according to the firm’s Monday filing.
For August, the casino firm’s drop amounted to KRW293.33 billion, up by 19.1 percent sequentially and up 50.2 percent from a year ago. Of the KRW293.33 billion of drop achieved in August, approximately KRW199.97 billion were drop for “VIP” table games and another KRW65.73 billion were for “mass” table games; while the remaining KRW27.63 billion were slot machine drop, according to additional corporate information published in its official website.
For both VIP and mass play, Japan and China are listed as amongst the most significant sources for the casino operator’s patrons for the reporting period.
