Greek casinos see drop in visitors and turnover

The Greek casino market suffered a decline in the first half of the year, as both visits by punters and the money being played saw a reduction for one more year, in line with the trend recorded in the last decade.

Sources tell Kathimerini that the country’s nine casinos received 1,333,500 visitors in January-June 2018, which was down 2.3 percent from the same period in 2017. The first half of the year only saw an increase in visitor numbers at the casinos of Thessaloniki, Parnitha in Athens and Corfu.

There was also a reported decline in turnover, as total bets in the nine casinos amounted to 740 million euros, an annual reduction by 1.8 percent from the first six months of 2017. In January-June last year bets had added up to 754.2 million euros.

The casinos’ gross gaming revenues (GGR) reached up to 116.2 million euros, down from 120 million in H1 of 2017, for a fresh annual contraction of 3.2 percent. Throughout the 12 months of 2017 the sector’s GGR had registered a total yearly decline of 3.8 percent.

Reliable sources say that there was an increase in gross revenues only in the casinos of Thessaloniki, Thrace and Corfu, with the last two securing a positive result for the first half of the year only thanks to the strong performance recorded in the course of last month.