Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING JAN 2019 12 BREAKFAST BRIEFS LANDING REVEALS SUDDEN RETURN OF MISSING CHAIRMAN PHILIPPINES GGR TO REACH US$4.1 BILLION IN 2019: DOMINGO LANDING International Development Chairman Yang Zhihui is no longer missing in action after the company announced that he had “resumed his duties as Chairman of the Board”. Landing had been unable to contact Yang for three months amid reports he was detained by authorities in Cambodia in late August and taken back to China in relation to his business links to China’s state-owned Huarong International Financial Holdings Ltd, whose former head is being investigated in a graft probe. However, the company released a statement in early December confirming that Yang has now returned to normal duty after apparently being released by Chinese authorities. “Mr Yang explained that he has been assisting the relevant department of the People’s Republic of China THE head of Philippines gaming regulator PAGCOR, Andrea Domingo, has tipped the country’s gross gaming revenue to reach Php217 billion (US$4.1 billion) by the end of 2019. Domingo said that projections for the current year have nation-wide GGR from the land-based and online sectors combined on track to reach Php192 billion (US$3.67 billion) in 2018 – a 14% increase on 2017 numbers and higher than the previously forecast Php186 billion. “Our performance this year is better than expected for both the private integrated resorts and the PAGCOR-owned casinos,” she stated. However, 2019 looks even more impressive with another 13% increase expected – pushing GGR up over US$4 billion for the first time. The figure includes both government-run and privately owned land-based operations as well as the online sector. Domingo recently told Inside Asian Gaming that the planned sale of PAGCOR-operated casinos had been put on hold due to the rapidly growing revenues they were generating for the government. with its investigation during the period of his absence,” Landing said. Yang holds a 50.48% stake in Landing through a wholly-owned Chinese company. His August disappearance came just weeks after he was present at a groundbreaking ceremony for Landing’s planned US$1.5 billion integrated resort in Manila – a project that seems unlikely to go ahead after Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte fired the board of Landing’s local partner and insisted that no new casinos would be built under his watch. The day before Yang’s disappearance was revealed, the company was forced to suspend trading after its stock price plummeted 35% from HK$5.60 to HK$3.71 in less than two hours.