Shambala Casino Gets Off to a Booming Start
A new casino resort situated in Russia’s far east has finally opened its doors and the initial footfall has given confidence to early investors. The Shambala casino in Vladivostok has managed to average around 550 customers per day in the first 3 months of operation. For the pilot quarter of the newly established resort, this is a phenomenal performance, and the hope is these numbers will continue to grow steadily as the new venue builds a customer base and a brand.
The new Primorye Entertainment Zone in the far east of Russia is a truly unique place in the gambling industry, strategically located on the precipice of Asia, an exciting array of new casinos have opened there in recent years and have attracted swathes of customers from all over the world. ©DVFU/Pixabay
When it comes to the delivery of new gambling resorts around the far east, it is not always typical for these businesses to be completely transparent with the exact numbers behind their acquisition success. In the case of Shambala, they’ve been willing to reveal these KPIs with the hope of driving more excitement around the brand, and ultimately generating stronger future-proof revenue streams for the rest of 2021. The initial data is relevant for the 4th quarter of 2020.
Digging into these numbers a little deeper and it’s possible to gain some interesting insights into the demographic of the casino guest at Shambala during this boom period. According to the track & trace information left by guests and registration information, the average visitor to the casino were males aged between 25 and 35. No surprises there. What is interesting though is that most of these visitors were of local origins, that being the Primorye region.
In terms of the financials, it was interesting to look at the accounting performance from the 4th quarter of 2021 at the Shambala casino. Over the course of the opening weekend, the guests at the venue were consuming many of the gambling products available at the casino. The most popular games were running at full tilt during this period, and the casino reported an average gambling wager of $110 and an average catering spend of $27.
Russia’s New Primorye Integrated Entertainment Zone
The new Shambala casino is situated in the New Primorye Entertainment Zone in Russia’s far east. The new casino at Vladivostok will become a major driver of tourism in the region. Backed by a fairly large capital endowment, this casino is said to be initiating a spending round of some $110 million over the next few months.
It is surprising to see the evolution of this venue occur at such a high velocity. For a project that began merely 3 years ago, to see it evolve at the speed and precision it has is a true testament to the skillful leadership of its managing staff. The first months of operating are always a pivotal moment where the hard efforts of planning materialize and everyone can find out how successful the new venture will be.
Also resident in this region of eastern Russia is the Hong Kong owned Tigre de Cristal casino integrated resort, and the NagaCorp Ltd casino will also be part of the Primorye Integrated Economic Zone.With so many casino powerhouses taking up residency all under one roof. With such an ambitious development plan already being touted, it’s no surprise that the first-mover advantage being experienced by Shambala currently is translating directly into net profits.
Looking closer at the games being played, it’s interesting to see the specific breakdown of what was being wagered and where. The gaming machines such as video poker were the most popular choice of patrons who took up the game at a whopping 65%, the second most popular choice was roulette with 30% of players choosing it as their primary activity. The final statistic worth a bit more exploration was the popularity of poker, which attracted just 11% of all the gaming activity over the opening quarter.
Baccarat Entertainment Limited to a Lucky Few
The game of baccarat is one of the most popular forms of gambling for players coming out of the far east. For that reason, the Primorye resort didn’t experience such a surge in activity on this particular game as the borders to Russia are tightly controlled for COVID security reasons. This severe drop in demand due to the strict travel restrictions meant that only 75 guests showed an interest in playing the table game during this particular review period.
It is no surprise therefore that given the intense demands on travel curbs into the Russian Federation, over two-thirds of the guests visiting the resort during this opening weekend were Russian citizens, with the majority residing in the nearby Vladivostok area.
A look into the figures for international guests at the casino during the opening weekend also tells a fascinating tale. The total amount of guests from foreign countries during the review period was approximately 3,700 hailing from over 24 different countries. Within this sample, there were around 900 from the Asian peninsula and 2,800 from eastern Europe and other neighboring countries.
