Cape Casinos Statistics Released

May 7- The year ending March 2007 was a bumper year for Cape casinos, according to the latest statistics released by the Casino Association of South Africa. The figures show that Western Cape casinos, which include GrandWest, as well as smaller casinos in Mykonos, Caledon and the Garden Route, generated R30 billion in revenue - with gross gaming revenue around R2 billion.

Although no official numbers exist for later than March 2007, industry experts are positive that a hot summer season, peaking in December, saw a further growth of profits for the Western Cape resorts and it would be safe to say that by March 2008, gaming revenue would have topped the R2.2 billion mark.

In general, the casinos situated in Cape Town generated around 18% of the country's R13.5 billion revenue up to the end of March 2007.

Cape Town's GrandWest, long considered to be the country's most profitable casino, attracted 6.4 million visitors, compared to the 7.6 who visited Gauteng's Montecasino and the 8.9 visitors to Tsogo Sun's Sun Coast casino in Durban.

Smaller casinos also fared well. In the four month period since it opened in November 2006, the Golden Valley Casino in Worcester attracted nearly 100,000 visitors, while casinos in Mykonos and Caledon showed nearly 1 million annual visitors each. 550,000 visitors passed through the doors of the Garden Route casino in Mossel Bay in the year ending March 2007.

Despite these encouraging figures, however, industry experts believe that Cape casinos will also start to feel the pinch of the general economic slowdown. Consumer spending is expected to drop as money is directed to more important things. This could be countered, however, by the fact that tourism to South Africa may actually increase because of a weaker rand, thereby attracting more foreign visitors to these locations.

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