Casinos Austria and Austrian Lotteries Group has posted good results for the first half of 2016.
Clear growth at the 12 Austrian casinos and the online platform win2day, continued high performance for lottery games and a further improvement in results at Casinos Austria International all contributed. Director general Karl Stoss confirmed in a press statement: “Clear growth in sales was achieved in many areas and with excellent results for all group companies and segments, we are confident that we will close the 2016 business year with record sales and profits.
“These results can be attributed to the fact that we have clearly made the right investments in our casinos and products in the past months, that we have improved our gastronomy portfolio and that we are also reaching a larger online community with our increasingly mobile gaming offer.” The 12 domestic casinos further improved on their already high performance in 2015, both in terms of revenues and guest numbers. In the first half of 2016, they posted revenues of €155.76m, an increase of eight per cent compared to the same period in the previous year. A total of 1,444,353 guests visited these casinos from January to June 2016, 6.5 per cent more than in the first six months of 2015.
And the Austrian casinos also confirmed their growing relevance as leading tourist destinations. Over the last 18 months, half their guests have been international visitors. By way of comparison, five years ago the share of international visitors lay at only 40 per cent. Casinos Austria will be investing around €36m in 2016 in its domestic casinos. A large part of this sum will be used to replace around 1,000 of its 2,100 slot machines and to connect all these machines to the Austrian Federal Computer Centre by the end of the year.
A relaunch of Casino Graz and redesign of its restaurant is also on the agenda for the current business year. At Casino Salzburg, where the completion of much of the major renovations was celebrated in March, further investments will be made throughout the year, primarily on the building’s exterior. And the restaurant in Casino Velden has also only recently reopened following a complete redesign.
