New Pailin casino shrugs off conflict worry

[PHNOM PENH POST]

Entertainment Gaming Asia will open a casino in Pailin province near the border with Thailand by next year, the firm said.

The proposed location “is far away from the current conflict area of the northern Cambodia Thailand border”, the firm’s Chief Executive Officer Clarence Chung said in a first quarter conference call.

“We are making solid progress in implementing our new growth strategy of owning and operating regional casinos in emerging gaming markets in the Indo-China region,” he said in a statement accompanying Monday’s conference call.

Director of Finance Ministry's  Financial Industry Department Mey Vann claimed yesterday that despite the ongoing border dispute, casinos near Thailand remain unaffected.

“Political circumstances have not affected the casinos economic situation and there has been no decline in the number of visitors from both sides of the border,” he said.

“The investors rigorously surveyed Pailin province’s current economic situation and potential for profit in the region’s gaming market.”

However, some casino operators in Banteay Meancheay province – where violent border clashes had taken place – told The Post earlier this month they had shuttered casinos when Thai authorities had temporarily closed two border gates.

Entertainment Gaming plans to develop the project on a plot of land owned by its unnamed local partner in the venture, which owns 33 percent. The firm expects the project to cost US$2 million in a location near four other border casinos. It will open the casino under its “Dreamworld” brand with approximately 23 tables and 40 electronic gaming machines, according to the release.

The Dreamworld casino, set to open in the second quarter of 2012, “will cater to mass market and premium players from the major nearby cities in the region,” it said.

Entertainment Gaming, formerly Elixir Gaming, currently operates 726 gambling machines in Cambodia, primarily at Phnom Penh’s sole licenced casino NagaWorld, Chief Accounting Officer Andy Tsui said in the conference call.Its Cambodia operations generated some $3.4 million in the first quarter of the year, he said.

The firm also has plans to launch a separate casino in Kampot province.