South Korea’s leading foreigner-only casino operator, Paradise Co, has reported a 56.3% month-on-month decline in casino revenue to KRW6.95 billion (US$6.0 million) in July, impacted by yet another surge in COVID-19 cases nationwide.
July’s figure, also 60.0% lower than July 2020, comes as Korea’s 7-day COVID average soared above 1,500 cases per day, including multiple new daily case records during the past two weeks.
Paradise Co has kept its four casinos – Paradise Walkerhill in Seoul, Busan Casino, Jeju Grand and Paradise City in Incheon – open throughout this latest wave but strict capacity restrictions have impacted business volumes.
As a result, the company said in a Monday filing that table game sales fell 63.4% versus June to KRW5.03 billion (US$4.4 million) while machine sales fell 10.9% to KRW1.91 billion (US$1.7 million).
Table drop of KRW143.64 billion (US$124.8 million) was 26.2% lower than June.
For the first seven months of 2021 combined, casino revenue is down 46.4% year-on-year to KRW119.51 billion (US$103.8 million) and table drop down 38.4% to KRW1.02 trillion (US$886 million).