Melco venture opens fourth satellite casino in Cyprus

Feb 27, 2020 Newsdesk Latest News, Top of the deck, World  

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Cyprus Casinos says it has opened its “fourth and last” licensed satellite casino in the Republic of Cyprus, in the city of Paphos, on the southwest coast of the Mediterranean island.

Cyprus Casinos – controlled by ICR Cyprus Holdings Ltd – issued a written announcement this week saying the new satellite casino, called Cyprus Casinos Paphos (C2 Paphos), supplements its other establishments elsewhere in Cyprus: the C2 Ayia Napa, C2 Nicosia and C2 Larnaca satellite casinos; and its C2 Limassol temporary main casino.

ICR Cyprus Holdings is a joint venture by gaming entrepreneur Lawrence Ho Yau Lung’s Melco Resorts and Entertainment Ltd and Cyprus Phassouri (Zakaki) Ltd, a Cyprus-based conglomerate. It has a 30-year exclusive licence to run casinos in Cyprus.

The Cyprus Casinos announcement said C2 Paphos (pictured) has 50 gaming machines. The venue welcomed its first customers on Monday, stated the document.

C2 Paphos is located in the city’s main touristic area in close proximity to Paphos International Airport and Paphos’ historical city centre, said the venue’s promoter.

The casino operator said Melco Resorts had designed the building housing the casino specially for Paphos. The building sits on a plot of 2,600 square metres (27,986 sq feet) and contains 550 square metres of floor space. C2 Paphos has 25 employees, according to the firm’s statement.

The announcement quoted the president of Cyprus Casinos, Craig Ballantyne, as saying: “We strongly believe that C2 Paphos will further enhance the local touristic experience and attract more visitors to the district not only from Cyprus but also from abroad”.

The Cyprus Casinos establishments opened so far are the precursors of a large casino resort, to be called City of Dreams Mediterranean.

City of Dreams Mediterranean is being built in the Cypriot city of Limassol and is due to be finished in 2021. Operations of the temporary C2 Limassol will cease when the City of Dreams Mediterranean is launched.

The casino resort will comprise a five-star hotel in a 16-storey building containing 500 guest rooms or suites, facilities for meetings and exhibitions, and a casino containing over 100 gaming tables and 1,000 gaming machines, according to previous information from its promoter.

In November, Melco Resorts said the main contractor on City of Dreams Mediterranean aimed to deliver the building structure “over the next nine months,” so that the property can “open to the public by the end of 2021”.

In July Nasdaq-listed Melco Resorts announced that it had acquired for US$375 million all of its parent’s interest in the entity developing the casinos in Cyprus.

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