Officials inwards Puerto Rico revealed this calendar week that the Caribbean Sea island’s gaming manufacture is localise to expand by right smart of terzetto new casinos.
The Puerto Rico Gaming Commission says the Condado Plaza Hilton in San Juan, Embassy Suites by Hilton-Dorado in Dorado, and Tribute Fortfolio inwards Ponce are each seeking gaming licenses. Puerto Rico currently permits licensed casinos to control one-armed bandit machines and tabulate games.
The gaming charge says the Condado application has already been approved, and the deuce others testament be granted gaming privileges in the coming days. Gaming trading operations at all iii casinos are scheduled to commence before the finish of the year.
Condado hotel reps say the forthcoming casino testament feature more than 300 slot machines and around 2 dozen tabularize games. The Hilton belongings told gaming regulators that it’s investment $33 trillion into the gaming space, and the cassino will bring forth around 200 verbatim jobs.
The ii other casino applicants are seeking authorisation for about 200 expansion slot machines each, and to a lesser extent than a dozen tabularize games inwards total. The Embassy Suites and Tribute casinos are hoped-for to make 120 new jobs betwixt the deuce gaming venues.
Tourism Rebound
Puerto Rico relies to a great extent on tourism to prop upwardly its island economy. But COVID-19 was, of course, staidly damaging to the hospitality industry.
The US territory counted to a greater extent than 2.2 meg overnight visitors inward 2019. That identification number plummeted to simply 1.1 meg during the pandemic-stricken 2020.
However, 2021 has been a different story, as Puerto Rico experient a warm rebound of visitors. Data supplied past “Discover Puerto Rico,” a non-profit-making destination marketing organization, shows that hotel rooms sold this yr hold already eclipsed 2019.
Despite facing many challenges stemming from the pandemic, the touristry community of interests in Puerto Rico is erst once again showing the domain its strength and resiliency,” said Brad Dean, CEO of Discover Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico is outperforming other Caribbean destinations inwards terms of post-pandemic recovery. And the island’s hotel rooms are going for average every night rates that are 37 percent higher than they were inward 2019.
The influx of visitors is likely voice of the understanding why the III aforementioned resorts are seeking casino rights to long pillow the attractiveness of their destinations.
PR Casino Industry
Discover Puerto Rico says the island currently has 16 licensed casinos, which is localise to spread out soon to 19. Despite the figure of gaming properties, Puerto Rico remains a relatively little gaming market. In 2019, porcine gaming revenue on the island totaled to a lesser extent than $300 million.
The most newsworthy cassino in Puerto Rico is perhaps located at the historic Fairmont El San Juan Hotel, where Foxwoods latterly reopened a casino space. The 15,000-square-foot Foxwoods El San Juan Casino commenced operations inwards November, with nearly 300 slot machines and 14 tabular array games.
Sports betting remains inwards the deeds inwards Puerto Rico. The island legalized sports betting in 2019. But the cognitive process of finalizing the regulations that will supervise the expanded play has moved easy amid COVID-19.
BetMGM nonetheless became the first US-based sportsbook manipulator to stretch a partnership with a Puerto Rico casino. The MGM Resorts entity announced in September an concord with Casino del Mar at La Concha Resort in San Juan to running play sports betting thither one time permitted.