That’s a whole lot of money.
Bloomberry Resorts, which operates the Solaire Resort and Casino, said it posted a PHP4.072-billion-peso (USD91-million) net profit in 2014, compared with a loss of PHP1.315-billion in the previous year.
Solaire, owned by Filipino billionaire and port magnate Enrique Razon, opened in March 2013, the first of four billion-dollar casinos planned on a glittering strip fronting Manila Bay dubbed Entertainment City.
The huge casinos are the centrepiece of the Philippines’ campaign to rival Las Vegas and Singapore as one of the world’s biggest gambling destinations, after the Chinese enclave of Macau, the industry’s capital.
Analysts said Solaire’s nearly half billion dollars in revenue, in only its second year, showed the Philippines could achieve its goal.
A second mammoth casino called City of Dreams, a joint venture between Australian billionaire James Packer and Lawrence Ho, son of Macau gambling mogul Stanley Ho, opened at Entertainment City in February.
Japanese billionaire Kazuo Okada has targeted a 2016 opening for his casino, while Filipino tycoon Andrew Tan and Malaysian billionaire Lim Kok Thay will open theirs in 2018.
The largest American casino operator, Caesars Entertainment, said in October that it was seeking a licence to build a fifth mega-casino in the Philippines.
Story: AFP
