PAGCOR Chairman and CEO Andrea Domingo has revealed that she supports the idea of creating a casino cluster, similar to that found along the Las Vegas Strip or Macau’s Cotai Strip, in Manila’s Entertainment City precinct. But that dream looks unlikely to become reality anytime soon due to opposition from current operators.
Asked about the concept of creating a cluster in an exclusive interview to appear in the upcoming October edition of Inside Asian Gaming, Domingo said, “I wanted to do that, but the four original IRs there are very adamant in having, you know … they’re opposed to a fifth operator and they’re asking for the moratorium of five years for the industry to mature.
“And we’ve given them that, which means that there cannot be any casino operating, another casino operating there, until after February 2022 which is just about the end of the term of this administration.
“But I really think there should be a critical mass in Entertainment City making the area more contiguous and each IR more accessible. I really believe that.”
Domingo’s comments come after President Rodrigo Duterte effectively blacklisted a potential fifth operator, Landing International, by ruling invalid a land deal for its proposed US$1.5 billion NayonLanding integrated resort. Duterte fired the entire board of Landing’s local partner, Nayong Pilipino Foundation, on the same day as the company held its groundbreaking ceremony in August before later ruling the land lease deal for a plot of land between Solaire and Okada Manila invalid.
Domingo told IAG she “cannot tell” if more operators will be welcomed into Entertainment City in future because “land is very limited there.”
“There’s new land in nearby areas and if the President, or the next President, will lift the moratorium, but I cannot foretell what will happen,” she said.
RelatedPosts
