Holland Casino suffers €28.3m loss in H1
The closure of casinos due to the pandemic caused revenue to fall 58.7% year-on-year.
The Netherlands.- Holland Casino has reported net losses after corporate income tax of €28.3million for the first half of the year.
The losses compare to a profit of €32.5million in H1 2019.
The state-owned monopoly, which runs 14 casinos in the country, saw revenue fall 58.7 per cent to €146.3million for the six months ending June 30.
All 14 of its casinos were closed for more than three months due to Covid-19 lockdown measure in the Netherlands.
Business had been performing well up until the introduction of lockdown in March, Holland Casino says.
In the period up until the start of lockdown on March 13, average visits were up by 3.9 per cent and average spend by 3.1 per cent.
Turnover was up by 7 per cent for the period.
The subsequent period of lockdown until casinos were allowed to reopen on July 1 erased all of those gains.
The casinos are now open but operating with 30 per cent capacity limits. The casinos have been warned to ensure Covid-19 safety measures are enforced.
Holland Casino Chief Executive Erwin van Lambaart said: “Corona has hit our company hard. From one day to the next we had to close our doors and our nearly 4,000 employees suddenly found themselves at home.
“As a result, we could no longer perform our important social function. No legal casino offering was available in the Netherlands for almost four months.
“Due to the closure, our turnover, around €60million per month, was completely lost.”
Van Lambaart said prospects for the rest of the year remain poor and that the operator expects to make announcements on how it will ensure future financial health by December.
He said: “Unfortunately, the outlook for the rest of this year is not exactly rosy and for next year is extremely uncertain.
“Our figures for the second half of the year will also not be good due to all the necessary restrictive measures.
“We are therefore currently looking at how we as a company remain financially healthy and future-proof in this difficult period.
“We expect to be able to make further concrete announcements about this by December.”
The company says it had sufficient liquidity to get through the period of closure.
It also used the Dutch government’s furlough scheme to continue paying a portion of the salaries of the company’s employees.
Shareholders made a decision early during the pandemic that there would be no dividend for the year.
