Operator News
Spain – New casino in Vigo could be operational this year
By Phil - 3 April 2018
The President of the Luckia Group, José González Fuentes, and the manager of Cirsa, Braulio Pérez, have met with the mayor of Vigo, Abel Caballero, and the councillor for Commerce, Ángel Rivas to discuss plans that will give the go ahead for a new casino in the city of Vigo.
Under current plans, the new casino will create 105 direct jobs plus an additional 75 to 80 indirect jobs. The agreement is dependent on planning permission for the building of the casino in Vigo’s free trade zone as well as the authorisation from the Government of Galicia. Both companies also own the Casino La Toja in the municipality of O Grove in Galicia.
The operators of the new casino have officially presented their proposal to the local government with the intention of speeding up building permits and the authorisation from the Vice Presidency so that they will be able to open before the end of the year. The owners will invest between €5.5 and €6m in developing the 1,700 square meter site in the lower level of the A Laxe Shopping Center: Vigo’s newest shopping centre, located centrally in the port area of Vigo. The location is designed to attract demand from the south of the province as well as customers from the north of Portugal and crew working on cruise ships that dock nearby.
The A Laxe gaming room will come with a bar and a small restaurant and will house the maximum number of games that regional laws allows with gaming tables, sports betting and slots. The operators of the new casino hope to present the project in April. After that, they expect to complete building work within four months, so that by the end of the year or early 2019 the casino should be operational. The casino will need to agree on terms for parking underground, as the casino would need to open until at least until four or five in the morning while operators are hoping to be given permission to operate 24 hours a day. The company said it would raise as much as €30m per year in revenue.
In legal terms, the Vigo room will be attached to the Casino La Toja but the owners will promote Casino de Vigo as a commercial brand on its own in order to differentiate itself. The Vice Presidency of the Government of Galicia announced in July 2011 its intention to revise regulations which had been in force since 1985 that allowed only one casino per province, required a local population requirement of over 300,000 inhabitants and blocked the expansion of Casino La Toja to the south. It was not until March 2016 that new regulations were finally passed when the government of Galicia recognised the economic potential of the proposal and the need to avoid the flight of potential casino customers to Portugal.
