Supplier News
The Netherlands – Holland Casino posts 11.5 per cent improvement on slots and tables
By Phil - 2 October 2016
State-owned Holland Casino, currently the only land-based operator casino operator in The Netherlands, recorded GGR of €538m in 2015, up 11.5 per cent on last year’s figures.
Live table gaming was up to €233.3m, showing a 9.1 per cent increase whilst the slots were up to €294.2m, up 13.7 per cent from 2014.
Gross operating profit came in at €69.3m, up from the €15.7m reported for 2014. Profit margin stood at 15.9 per cent, compared to a profit margin of 3.1 per cent in 2014.
The Dutch operator’s gaming estate includes 14 casinos. Holland Casino operated 6,011 slot machines at its properties in 2015, compared to a total of 6,037 such devices offered in 2014. There were 424 gaming tables at the venues last year, down from 426 in 2014.
Visitation improved by 6.7 per cent last year to reach 5.8m. It is interesting to note that 93 per cent of the Dutch population live within one hour’s drive from a Holland Casino location, and 20 per cent are less than 15 minutes away.
Spend per head per visit came in at €99 in 2015, up from an average of €95 in 2014. Overall, the Dutch gambling market was valued at €2.34bn in 2015 by Kansspelautoriteit, the Dutch gambling authority, marking an increase in market value of €104m from the previous year.
Holland Casino has also announced that it will be relocating one of its Amsterdam licenses with the casino at Schiphol Airport, which opened in 1995, closing and the licence being relocated to a new venue in Amsterdam West in 2017. The new casino will be built on the site of the old KPN headquarters in Sloterdijk, close to the Sloterdijk railway station. The 42,000 sq. m. Ven complex is the mastermind of Canadian-American designer Karim Rashid and will feature Park Inn by Radisson Hotels, B-aparthotels Amsterdam, bars, restaurants, convention space and nightclubs.
Holland Casino CEO Erwin van Lambaart said that the new casino would be housed in a top location that could be easily reached by both Amsterdam residents and guests of the city. He added that given that the Schiphol casino had not been a profitable one, it being replaced with a venue that will be part of such a large-scale project would prove a significant step forward in the company’s future revenue growth.
As part of the overall liberalisation of the gaming sector, the Netherlands government confirmed some time ago its intention to privatise its casinos. The sale had been held up due to the casinos not being profitable but with Holland Casino now posting two years of improvement, the Dutch media is reporting that Dutch financial services group ING has been hired to find a buyer. The plan is to sell off 10 of the 14 casinos currently run by Holland Casino as a package. The other four will be sold off separately. Two new licences will also be up for grabs meaning the market will have 16 casinos owned by seven different operators. Estimates of how much the government could raise by the sale range from €650m to over €1bn.
