QC casino pushed

Razon group-led Bloomberry Resorts Corp. is set to break ground for a high-rise gaming hub beside the Ayala’s Vertis North area in Quezon City, aiming to complete this second Solaire-branded integrated gaming resort by 2022.

During the company’s stockholders’ meeting on Tuesday, Bloomberry chair Enrique Razon Jr. said the design for the new Solaire hub would be finalized by January and construction would begin by mid-2019.

“This is part of our strategy to capture the base mass segment in the north,” Razon said during his management report to shareholders.

Razon told reporters that he was not expecting a second Solaire hub within Metro Manila to cannibalize the market served in the original integrated resort in Bay area’s Pagcor Entertainment City, the country’s miniversion of a Las Vegas entertainment strip.

“We expect the market to grow,” he said.

Through its hotel and resort development arm Sureste Properties Inc., Bloomberry bought a 1.57-hectare property in Quezon City from the National Housing Authority (NHA) for P1.98 billion in 2015. The deal then priced the property at P126,142 a square meter.

Since this second hub is much smaller than Solaire’s 16-hectare lot area in Bay area, Razon said Bloomberry would have the build vertically. As such, he said the upcoming Solaire hub in Quezon City could still have the same size of gaming space as its original hub in Bay area.

Razon also expressed optimism that Bloomberry would post a banner year this 2018.

“We foresee that tourism will continue to play a significant role in the growth of Philippine IRs (integrated resorts). Growth will likewise be boosted by the rise in middle-class incomes and increasing connectivity across the region,” he said.

“In Entertainment City, infrastructure and real estate projects are being constructed at a rapid rate and this should drive increased foot traffic into Solaire,” he added.

In the first quarter, Bloomberry Resorts Corp. saw a 71-percent year-on-year surge in first-quarter net profit to a new quarterly high of P3.7 billion, boosted by higher gaming volumes alongside an unusually large win rate.

A casino’s “win” or “hold” rate is based on the element of luck but is also affected by the player’s skill and resources as well as the amount of time spent in the casino. While it’s often said that the “house” always wins, statistical probability is still the name of the game.