Notizie dagli operatori

Spagna – Il nuovo casinò di Vigo potrebbe essere operativo quest’anno

The President of the Luckia Group, José González Fuentes, and the manager of Cirsa, Braulio Pérez, have met with the mayor of Vigo, Abel Caballero, and the councillor for Commerce, Ángel Rivas to discuss plans that will give the go ahead for a new casino in the city of Vigo.

Under current plans, the new casino will create 105 direct jobs plus an additional 75 to 80 indirect jobs. The agreement is dependent on planning permission for the building of the casino in Vigo’s free trade zone as well as the authorisation from the Government of Galicia. Both companies also own the Casino La Toja in the municipality of O Grove in Galicia.

The operators of the new casino have officially presented their proposal to the local government with the intention of speeding up building permits and the authorisation from the Vice Presidency so that they will be able to open before the end of the year. The owners will invest between €5.5 and €6m in developing the 1,700 square meter site in the lower level of the A Laxe Shopping Center: Vigo’s newest shopping centre, located centrally in the port area of Vigo. The location is designed to attract demand from the south of the province as well as customers from the north of Portugal and crew working on cruise ships that dock nearby.

The A Laxe gaming room will come with a bar and a small restaurant and will house the maximum number of games that regional laws allows with gaming tables, sports betting and slots. The operators of the new casino hope to present the project in April. After that, they expect to complete building work within four months, so that by the end of the year or early 2019 the casino should be operational. The casino will need to agree on terms for parking underground, as the casino would need to open until at least until four or five in the morning while operators are hoping to be given permission to operate 24 hours a day. The company said it would raise as much as €30m per year in revenue.

Dal punto di vista legale, la sala di Vigo sarà annessa al Casinò La Toja, ma i proprietari promuoveranno il Casinò di Vigo come marchio commerciale proprio per differenziarsi. La Vice Presidenza del Governo della Galizia ha annunciato nel luglio 2011 l'intenzione di rivedere la normativa in vigore dal 1985 che autorizzava un solo casinò per provincia, richiedeva un fabbisogno di popolazione locale superiore a 300,000 abitanti e bloccava l'espansione del Casinò La Toja a il Sud. Fu solo nel marzo 2016 che le nuove norme furono finalmente approvate quando il governo della Galizia riconobbe il potenziale economico della proposta e la necessità di evitare la fuga dei potenziali clienti dei casinò in Portogallo.