Third-quarter net income at Grand Korea Leisure Co Ltd, an operator in South Korea of foreigner-only casinos, declined by 49.5 percent year-on-year to approximately KRW6.04 billion (US$4.3 million). The firm gave the information in its unaudited quarterly financial results filed with the Korea Exchange on Monday.
Measured sequentially, Grand Korea Leisure’s net income for the quarter ending in September was down 46.6 percent on the second quarter’s nearly KRW11.33 billion.
Grand Korea Leisure’s overall sales in the third quarter amounted to nearly KRW93.77 billion, representing a 5.1-percent sequential decrease and a year-on-year decrease of 2.9 percent.
Its latest reporting quarter took the casino operator’s cumulative sales for the first nine months of this year to KRW290.54 billion, a 5.0-percent decline when compared to the equivalent period in 2023, the filing stated.
Grand Korea Leisure runs three foreigner-only Seven Luck-branded casinos: two 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 country’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. As of September-end, the tourism body had a 51-percent stake in Grand Korea Leisure, according to the company’s supplementary financial information.
The tally of visitors to Grand Korea Leisure’s three properties for the first nine months of this year rose 41.8 percent year-on-year, to 751,047.
Nonetheless, Grand Korea Leisure saw its casino net sales for the first nine months decline by 6.1 percent year-on-year to KRW287.3 billion, despite higher casino drop – the amount paid by customers to purchase gaming chips – and more visitors when compared to a year ago, said the supplementary data.
The company’s January to September casino drop amounted to nearly KRW2.77 trillion, a 13.5-percent year-on-year growth. About 58 percent of the casino drop was generated from Grand Korea Leisure’s Gangnam Coex property.
The hold rate of the company’s casino operations was 10.4 percent in the first three quarters, a decline from 12.5 percent in the equivalent period last year.
The “marketing activity expenses” – one of Grand Korea Leisure’s major cost items – amounted to KRW47.6 billion in the first three quarters of this year, representing a year-on-year hike of 18.1 percent, the company’s supplementary information noted.
