Operator News
Nepal – Five casinos in Nepal facing legal action
By Phil - 6 March 2018
Five casinos in Nepal are facing potential closures after the Department of Tourism served a three-day ultimatum on them to pay their owed taxes or face legal action.
The Department said: “We have served a three-day ultimatum on tax defaulting casinos and mini-casinos, and if they do not pay heed to the department’s orders, they will be punished as per the law.”
The threat, which has been given to three casinos and two mini-casinos, is reminiscent of what happened in April 2014 when having issued similar warnings, the government opted to close all casinos guilty of defaulting on paying the correct royalties
Casino Royale based in the Hotel Yak and Yeti, pictured, Casino Rad located in the Radisson Hotel and Casino Venus whose home is the Malla Hotel collectively owe millions in annual royalties and renewal fees.
These three casinos are only operating following an interim order from the Supreme Court.
Having paid a Rs20m fee to obtain a gaming licence, casinos need to pay Rs10m every year to renew it along with an annual royalty of Rs30m set by the Financial Act 2017 to 18. The annual royalty for mini-casinos is Rs7.5m.
Casino Royale is operated by Surendra Bahadur Singh under Gilt Investment, Casino Rad is operated by Kishore Silwal under Rock International whilst Casino Venus is run by Tapta Bahadur Bista. Whilst the first two have paid some royalties the latter has not paid anything.
There are currently nine fully-fledged casinos operating in Nepal, all of which must be located in five-star hotels only. Hotels of other ratings are permitted to run mini-casinos with electronic gaming.
Two companies; Happy Hour and Rock International operate eight mini-casinos.
