What’s turning out to be a game changer for the country’s fledgling gaming industry—and not necessarily for the better—is a shift in the tax regime from the 5-percent franchise tax on gross gaming revenues to a 30-percent tax on net income. This is seen affecting the bankability of the industry especially as investors had come in on the assumption of a competitive cost structure versus regional gaming hubs.
Gaming stocks fell sharply on Monday as the market weighed in the risks of a change in tax regime arising from the loss of tax-exemption status by the industry regulator Philippine Amusement & Gaming Corp. (Pagcor).
Bloomberry Resorts Corp., the gaming firm of tycoon Enrique Razon Jr., will join the 30-company roster of the Philippine Stock Exchange index on March 11.
The relatively limited number of gaming developments around Asia-Pacific is poised to make the Philippines’ entertainment city development one of the biggest gaming hubs in the region, according to officials of Bloomberry Resorts Corp.
The Bloomberry Resorts Corp. is on track to open its integrated gaming and entertainment complex Solaire Manila by the first quarter of 2013, becoming the first gaming operator to debut in Pagcor City.
Bloomberry Resorts Corp. has completed a $210-million fund-raising for the first phase of its integrated gaming and entertainment complex in Pagcor City.
Bloomberry Resorts Corp., developer of the first integrated gaming complex to open in Pagcor’s Entertainment City, expects to bring to public hands about 11.45 percent of the company from a re-initial public offering, or re-IPO, worth around P8.55 billion, in early May.
