In this regular feature in IAG to celebrate 18 years covering the Asian gaming and leisure industry, we look back at our cover story from exactly 10 years ago, “Game on”, to rediscover what was making the news in April 2013!
Solaire Resort & Casino turned 10 on 16 March 2023, and just as Inside Asian Gaming has been there to witness its development in the decade since, we were also present at launch.
As we highlighted in our April 2013 cover story, titled “Game On”, the opening of Solaire signalled a new era for the Philippines casino industry. Previously, the local gaming market was dominated by PAGCOR – the government-owned operator and regulator which at that time ran 13 Casino Filipino locations and 23 slots clubs comprising a combined 7,100 slots and 650 table games.
Private enterprise joined the mix with the opening of two Fiesta-branded casinos, operated by Thunderbird Resorts, in San Fernando City and Rizal, followed by Jimei Group’s Fontana Hot Spring Leisure Park in what is now the Clark Freeport Zone.
While the 2009 opening of Resorts World Manila represented the Philippines’ first integrated resort, Solaire took the experience to a whole new level as the first property located in the heart of Manila’s Entertainment City precinct.
Enrique K Razon Jr, the Chairman and CEO of Solaire owner Bloomberry Resorts Corp, said at the time he wanted his new IR to “match and hopefully even surpass” the best that Macau, Las Vegas or Australia had to offer, and IAG’s first impressions suggested he was quickly on the right track.
“Solaire is aiming high [and] it shows,” we wrote at the time.
“Once inside you pick up on it immediately. A palette of earth tones predominates, warm and welcoming, and it’s carried over into the fabrics and furnishings and in the stretches of cool marble and touches of mother-of- pearl. It shows in the way foot traffic is guided around and through these spaces so that each seems to exude a personality of its own.
“The interior is a veritable gallery of large art pieces that work as a unifying theme throughout. These are original and exclusive to Solaire, most of them commissioned from emerging Filipino artists: big, splashy, fire treated resins, cheeky silkscreen portraits, a stunning 500-kilogram beast constructed of 84,000 crystal weights that gives the Dragon Bar its name, clusters of light that soar and tumble high above the main entrance and the VIP lobby, Dadaist dramas in their own right.
“It’s an atmosphere that succeeds in being intimate and distinctly exciting at the same time.”
With Solaire leading the way, Entertainment City was envisioned as a driving force behind the Philippines’ push to expand its global tourism appeal and in that pursuit it is already a success.
Now boasting four integrated resorts and with a fifth on the way next year, the Philippines is emerging as Asia’s largest gaming market outside of Macau, with annual GGR of almost US$5 billion expected to double to US$10 billion by 2027.
How far it has come.
