Casino levies boost Tote Board’s surplus

[yeokiwi]

Collections from casino levies made up around S$140 million of the Tote Board’s gaming surpluses between April and December last year. This amount is expected to rise at the end of the financial year 2010 in March 31.

The entry levy is what Singapore citizens and permanent residents have to pay to enter the two casinos — S$100 a day or S$2,000 a year.

Correct me if I am wrong.

S$140 million over 9 months is a whopping $15.6 million per month, and $520k per day.

Assuming a conservative 50% of receipts coming from the $100/day charge, thats 2,600 Singaporeans visiting both casinos everyday, and 700,000 for the past 9 months.

The remaining 50% would come from the $2000/year charge, which amounts to 130 "long term" customers everyday and 35,000 for the past 9 months.

This would imply a minimum of 735,000 Singaporeans visiting over the past 9 months. That's almost 20% of the local resident population (at 3.7 million).

The 700,000 probably consists of repeated visitors and therefore the actual number should be lowered.
If there is an average of 1 repeat visit per person(probably more..), then the count will drop to 350000 + 35000.
Besides that, I think the amount of levies that come from $2000 annual levy is likely to be more than 50% of the total amount.

I had been asking around but not many people I knew had visited the casinos.
I suppose, going by my gut feels, around 5-10% of Singaporeans had visited the casinos.

Lastly, most casinos in the world depend significantly on the local population.