The Superintendence of Gambling Casinos (SCJ) from Chile has reported that authorized casinos reached the $48.3m mark in tax contributions in the first three months of 2022.
Taking inflation out of the equation, these results are 6.4% lower than the ones registered before the pandemic, although they continue the positive trends from recent months.
According to the local regulator, the $48.3m was distributed to different sectors, including $21.9m to the communes and regional governments of each casino, $20.7m in gaming VAT, and $5.5m in income tax.
The casinos totaled $149.8m in gross revenue between January and the end of March, meaning that revenues were 12.2% higher than in 2020, the last period in which casinos were able to operate normally.
“In any case, compared to 2021, when operations were severely limited by the sanitary crisis, the revenues for the first quarter are approximately four times higher,” said the SCJ.
The average spend per visit was $101, or a 30% increase when compared to the first quarter of 2019: “As the regular public returns to casinos, the average spend is closer to the levels seen before the pandemic,” the regulator assured.
A total of 1.4 million people visited casinos in the first three months of the year, representing 54% of the total number of visits before the pandemic. The monthly average was 494.245, approximately 3000 more than in the fourth quarter of 2021 when casinos welcomed 491,128 people.
The SCJ also highlighted the opening of Enjoy Coquimbo, which started operations on January 21, 2022. The casino made the payment of a specific tax for a proportional amount to the days it operated since its opening, worth around $17m.
“These resources are collected by the General Treasury and made available to the respective municipalities in the same period as they’re received,” said the SCJ.
Back in the fourth quarter of 2021, the casinos’ gross revenues totaled $355m, while December figures reached $55.5m. The casinos not only showed signs of recovery but also exceeded finances from 2019, despite operating with a reduced capacity.
Taking into account the $66.4m in gross income from October ($38.7m in 2019), which was the best month since casinos started operating in 2008, the $53.8m from November ($42.7m in 2019) and the $53.8m in December ($47.4m in 2019), revenues in the last quarter totaled $174.1m, approximately half of what was generated throughout the entire year and $48.9m more than in 2019.
