Coronavirus concern for Cirsa Gaming Corporation SA

Spanish casino and slots operator Cirsa Gaming Corporation SA has reportedly announced that its earnings for the final four months of 2020 dropped by over 52% year-on-year to around €66 million ($80.2 million).

According to a report from G3Newswire, the Barcelona-headquartered firm attributed this large decrease to the temporary government-mandated closure of a large part of its business owing to the emergence of a third wave of the coronavirus pandemic. The source detailed that the operator recorded earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization for the same four-month period in 2019 of about €140 million ($170.2 million) with its tally for the most recent third-quarter having plummeted by some 68% to approximately €37.5 million ($45.6 million).

Protective precaution:

Cirsa Gaming Corporation SA reportedly reacted to the first wave of coronavirus-related shutterings in the spring by seeking to strengthen its balance sheet and inking deals that gave it in the region of €200 million ($243 million) in additional credit. However, the continued closure of its casinos, bingo halls and slot parlors purportedly soon forced the company to seek a trio of supplementary agreements that resulted in extra respite worth roughly €98 million ($119.1 million).

Significant security:

With only its Sportium online sportsbetting service having remained largely untouched by the impacts of coronavirus, Cirsa Gaming Corporation SA nevertheless reportedly now has access to something like €352.7 million ($428.5 million) in credit, which equates to a year-on-year rise of 121%. This cash will certainly be needed as the ongoing shuttering of bars in the autonomous Spanish region of Catalonia has purportedly resulted in the firm losing around 34% of its business with another 20% having been hit by this jurisdiction’s recent move to close all of its slot parlors.

Future flux:

Alejandro Landaluce serves as the Director General for Spain’s CEJUEGO industry organization and he reportedly proclaimed that coronavirus-related closures and the imposition of stricter social distancing protocols resulted in domestic gaming operators losing as much as 60% of their business up to the end of October. Moving forward and he purportedly declared that ‘nobody knows for sure what will happen’ as many regions such as Castile and Leon allow individual communities to set their own guidelines and protections.