Cambodian casino operator Nagacorp recently declared in the local press not to worry about the consequences of the COVVI-19 pandemic. The company is indeed convinced that its monopoly will survive the virus.
On Wednesday, Nagacorp published a commercial update on its performances during the first quarter of 2020. Over this period, the raw income of its Nagaworld installation in the Cambodian capital increased by 15% in annual shift to reach net profits $ 368.8 million.
Nagacorp records an increase in its recipes in the first quarter of 2020
The gains over these three months are entirely due to the VIP segment of the Cambodian casino, which saw its turnover increase by 18% to $ 9.7 billion, while raw VIP play income exploded at 270.2 millions of dollars. Nagacorp has attributed this increase to VIP players who turned to Cambodia for having given the impression of dodging the Pandemic peak so far.
Table games of this market have experienced a much less exciting quarter, with buy-ins and revenues down 1% compared to the same period in 2019. These lukewarm beginnings would be mainly due to the fact that many Asian-Pacific countries limit the ability of their citizens to travel due of the pandemic. This also implemented the performance of Electronic slot machines, which experienced a 25% drop in bets and 15% for income.
Nagacorp noted that its overall increased performance preceded the Cambodian government's decision to close All casinos To minimize the propagation of the COVID-19. Unlike most other casino jurisdictions, this decision has no target end date, but Nagacorp says that its financial reserves of around $ 473 million should allow it to overcome this period, regardless of its duration.
Nagacorp in the face of the COVVI-19 crisis
Nagacorp has therefore adopted a long-term vision of the current crisis, claiming that the lifespan of the COVID-19 is shorter than the duration of its monopoly which must last until 2045. If the efforts against the COVID-19 Cambodian authorities are fruitful, Nagacorp thinks that the company "will continue its short-term growth trajectory, especially now that the dissemination of the COVVI-19 has been successfully contained in China".
Nagacorp clearly knows where its interest is, because the commercial update contains Many references to China. It includes a section drawn directly from the Chinese state media affirming that the country's COVVI-19 response "gave the world to the world to deal with contagion and offered positive experiences in order to advance governance in matters of public health".
Or not. Bloomberg reported on Wednesday an American intelligence report accusing China of deliberately underestimating the number of infections and deaths due to the COVVI-19. An assertion that agrees with reports on the thousands of funeral urns stacked before the funeral salons in the province of Hubei. China has also revised its formula this week to calculate the number of infections, the eighth revision of this type since the epidemic has become public, which makes real progress in viral struggle more difficult to measure.
