A strong start to the year for its electronic gaming equipment segment helped drive a 5.0% increase in revenue for Macau’s Paradise Entertainment to HK$592 million in 1H19, overcoming a slight dip in GGR derived from casino management services.
Paradise reported a 79.0% increase in revenue from the sale of electronic gaming equipment and systems to HK$89.3 million, primarily from the sale of 461 Live Multi-Game (LMG) terminals and provision of upgrading services to 605 LMG terminals at various casinos in Macau.
The two casinos operated by Paradise – Kam Pek Paradise Casino under license from SJM and Waldo Casino under license from Galaxy – saw mixed results for the period. Kam Pek saw its GGR decline 7.4% year-on-year to HK$636.5 million with table game revenue down from HK$204.4 million to HK$199.4 million and LMG gaming tables down from HK$155.9 million to HK$159.9 million. Conversely, a far better performance on the gaming tables at Casino Waldo and slight rise in LMG revenue saw GGR increase 12.8% to HK$267.4 million.
Revenue attributable to Paradise via its share of casino GGR came to HK$499.2 million – down from HK$509.2 million in the first half of 2018.
Paradise also saw a decline in revenue from the leasing of electronic gaming equipment and systems of 38.5% to HK$2.4 million.
Adjusted EBITDA for the six months ended 30 June 2019 was HK$63.3 million, up 6.0% year-on-year, while profit fell 9.5% to HK$23.8 million due in part to a substantial rise in investment into R&D related to new and upgraded ETG machines, slot machines and casino management systems from HK$29.7 million to HK$42.6 million.
Paradise is currently trialing its own self-developed slot machines for trial which it says “represents one of our key milestones for diversifying our business into the slot machine market.”
“We look forward to the debut of our self-developed slot machines in the worldwide gaming markets including the Americas, Southeast Asia and Macau,” Paradise said. “With a robust development pipeline to embrace slot machines’ supply, the Group is well-positioned to place itself at the forefront of the global gaming industry as we are no longer a mere LMG products provider. We are confident that the brand-new slot machines will generate fresh revenue streams for the Group.”
