City of Dreams Sri Lanka ‘could achieve up to $250m in GGR’

The recently announced City of Dreams Sri Lanka project could achieve gross gaming revenue ranging between US$200m to $250m on a run-rate basis, the group’s management revealed.

During the group’s conference call after the announcement, Melco’s EVP and CFO, Geoff Davis, also stated that with the recently announced Sri Lanka project, the group’s total CapEx for 2024 is estimated to be approximately $415m, $50m of which would be for the Sri Lanka endeavor.

For Davis, this forecast aligns with the initial phase of casino development, which corresponds to an estimated capital expenditure of $125m for casino fit-out. However, while the property should open in the third quarter of this year, the casino itself should only debut in mid-2025.

“I think India is definitely the most interesting feeder market and I think there’s very significant potential there. Of course, there is some level of domestic spending as well. But of course, our goal will be to address those feeder markets in India and more broadly in the region. But we think the market potential there significantly exceeds where we are today with the existing operators in the market,” Davis pointed out.

“So a combination of local and domestic but very heavily skewed towards international when we think about where the growth can come going forward. So in our view, the international market could probably be something like two-thirds to one-third in that ballpark of international to domestic.”

Source: Asia Gaming Brief