City of Dreams Manila boosts gaming revenues

Integrated casino resort City of Dreams (CoD) Manila saw a 63.5 percent increase in net revenues to $491.2 million last year on higher gaming volume and house win rate.

CoD Manila operator Melco Crown (Philippines) Corp. reported to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Monday that property level cash flow ended last year at $160.3 million or nearly triple the previous year’s level of $55.4 million, owing to higher casino bets across the VIP or high-roller, mass market and gaming machines.

VIP gaming volume surged by 110.1 percent last year to $6.83 billion while CoD Manila’s win rate in this segment also improved to 3.4 percent from 2.3 percent in the previous year.

A casino’s “win” or “hold” rate is based on the element of luck but is also affected by the spread of table limits, a player’s skill and resources and amount of time spent in the casino. While it’s often said that the house always wins, sometimes it wins more and sometimes less than the statistical probability.

The mass market business also saw a 24.7 percent increase in volume last year to $550.5 million while the casino’s “hold” rate increased to 28 percent from 26.3 percent.

The volume of bets placed through the gaming machines similarly increased by 25.6 percent to $2.23 billion. The win rate in this segment, however, was a tad lower at 5.9 percent from 6 percent in the previous year.

Meanwhile, Melco also reported that total non-gaming revenues at CoD Manila slightly improved to $104.7 million from $100.1 million in the previous year.

It was earlier reported that net revenue in the last quarter of 2016 alone had risen by 78.9 percent year-on-year to $144.7 million.

Net revenue refers to gross sales less the cost of sales.