Philippines hopes to raise $7 billion from casinos

City of Dreams Manila, the second of four integrated casinos in Entertainment City along Manila Bay, is set to open in two months, the holder of its gaming license said.
“We will open in November,” Willy Ocier, chair of listed Premium Leisure Corp., said in a text message last week, as two other rival casinos in the area also announced their respective completion dates over the next four years.
Premium Leisure, formerly Sinophil Corp. and backed by the SM Group of Filipino billionaire Henry Sy, owns 100 percent of Premium Leisure and Amusement Inc., which is part of a consortium that holds a provisional license to develop and operate a casino in the Entertainment City complex.
Ocier said the $1.2-billion City of Dreams Manila, which will be operated by Macau’s Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd., was aiming to open 80 percent of its hotel rooms by November “with a gradual ramp up by yearend to 950 rooms.”
City of Dreams Manila will be the second integrated casino to open in Entertainment City, which is positioning itself as the Philippines’ version of gambling hubs in Las Vegas and Macau. 
It joins Enrique Razon Jr.’s Bloomberry Resorts Corp., which operates the Solaire Resort & Casino project that opened in 2013.
Manila Bay Resorts, owned by Japanese billionaire Kazuo Okada, is expected to open in late 2015 while Bayshore City Resorts World, a venture between Filipino billionaire Andrew Tan and Malaysia’s Genting Group, will open in the fourth quarter of 2018, they announced separately last week.
The state-run Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) is banking on the whole gaming complex to be the main contributor in the government’s goal to hit $7 billion in gaming revenue by 2019 against $2.2 billion in 2013.
Melco Crown said its project, located on a 6.2-hectare site, was expected to have a total of six hotel towers, including Crown Towers hotel, Nobu Hotel and a hotel managed by the Hyatt Group.
The casino would involve VIP and mass-market gaming facilities with up to 380 gaming tables, 1,700 slot machines and 1,700 electronic table games upon opening, Melco Crown said in a previous statement.
Premium Leisure last week went on voluntary trading suspension as it undertakes a global roadshow aimed at raising funds. 
Premium Leisure is controlled by listed Belle Corp., partly owned by the Sy family.
Meanwhile, the group of Japanese billionaire Kazuo Okada is preparing to hire about 8,000 workers to staff the initial phase of its integrated casino project in Entertainment City along Manila Bay in Parañaque City, which is scheduled to open in late 2015.
Officials of Okada-led Tiger Resort Leisure and Entertainment Inc., which will operate the $2-billion Manila Bay Resorts, told reporters that the recruitment drive was aimed at luring experienced hotel, entertainment and casino workers from the Philippines and overseas.
The announcement comes amid an ongoing dispute between Tiger Resort and partner Century Properties Group Inc., with a local court recently barring Okada from terminating the partnership seen as crucial in addressing a thorny foreign land ownership issue.
Despite this, officials of Tiger Resort, a unit of Okada’s Universal Entertainment, said it was business as usual at the construction site of their project, which aims to be the third of four integrated casinos to open its doors in the massive Entertainment City complex.
“We are trying very hard to open by the end of next year,” Matt Hurst, executive vice president for casino operations and marketing, told reporters.
He said the first phase of the project, which sits on roughly 44 hectares of reclaimed land, would involve a “full” casino, with 500 gaming tables and 3,000 slot machines; hotels; night clubs and restaurants.
An initial target of 7,500 square meters of retail space, which will be expanded in succeeding phases, has been set. In line with this, Hurst said the company was already talking to retailers like the SSI Group, which brings fashion labels like Gucci and Hermes to the Philippines.
The project is expected to open with an initial two hotels, with a total of 1,000 rooms, that Tiger Resort will manage on its own, said Adrian Ort, senior vice president and general manager of the hotel and food & beverage operations.
Because of the opening target, Tiger Resort is expected to soon start hiring workers for the site, he said.
“I’m sure we will find the right people but what we want to do is to be selective. We want to find the right people with the right attitudes,” Ort said.
Entertainment City is expected to provide employment to as many as 80,000 people once completed.
Other players in Entertainment City are Enrique Razon Jr.’s Solaire Resort and Casino, which opened in 2013.