687 rooms<\/strong>, restaurants and entertainment venues, including ballrooms and event and conference facilities. Phase II, with a 113-key Nuwa Hotel and gaming operations, is expected to open in the third quarter of 2025. The casino will be operated by Melco Resorts & Entertainment.<\/p>\n\n\n\nMorgan Stanley<\/strong> has previously said that Melco would pay developer John Keells 50-55 per cent of casino earnings before interest taxes depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA). Based on a 50 per cent EBITDA share and 40 per cent tax, analysts suggested that Melco Resorts could receive US$30m in cash flow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The government also plans to double the entrance fee for casinos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":777013109,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Sri Lanka's government proposes increasing the gaming turnover tax from 15% to 18% and doubling casino entrance fees to US$100 in its 2025 budget. These fiscal adjustments are set to impact operators like Melco Resorts & Entertainment, which is developing the City of Dreams Sri Lanka, potentially affecting its projected cash flow and operational profitability.","focusai_entities":"Melco Resorts & Entertainment, John Keells, Morgan Stanley, City of Dreams Sri Lanka","focusai_location":"Sri Lanka, Colombo","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (0.8), compliance_legal (0.7), operator_casino (1.0), marketing_crm (0.7), investor_analyst (1.0), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Melco's Profitability Impact?","query":"How will the proposed increase in Sri Lanka's gaming turnover tax from 15% to 18% and the doubled entrance fee affect Melco Resorts & Entertainment's projected EBITDA margins and the previously estimated US$30m cash flow from the City of Dreams Sri Lanka operation?"},{"label":"Investment Climate Shift?","query":"What are the long-term implications of these fiscal policy adjustments on Sri Lanka's attractiveness as an iGaming investment destination, particularly for B2C operators considering market entry or expansion?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[163,16334],"tags":[18488],"class_list":["post-777023060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","category-south-asia-news","tag-melco-resorts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777023060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777023060"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777023060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777023069,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777023060\/revisions\/777023069"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/777013109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777023060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777023060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777023060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}