Businesses propose casino ticket price for Vietnamese people 50 million a year

The Ministry of Finance wants to increase the casino entrance fee for Vietnamese people to 2.5 million a day, but businesses want to keep it the same and suggest that if purchased annually, it will only cost 50 million VND.

Vietnamese people will have to buy tickets at a price of 2.5 million VND per day or 50 million VND per month.

In the draft Decree on casino business that is being consulted, the Ministry of Finance proposes to allow Vietnamese people to play at casinos that meet the regulations. Accordingly, Vietnamese people will have to buy tickets at a price of 2.5 million VND per day or 50 million VND per month. This figure is 2-2.5 times higher than the current rate.

In its comments to the drafting agency, Ho Tram Project Company Ltd. proposed to keep the daily ticket price at 1 million VND. At the same time, they proposed a level of 50 million VND applied annually, instead of monthly as proposed by the Ministry of Finance. This regulation, according to the company, is referenced from Singapore, a country that currently applies about 3 million VND for a 24-hour ticket and 60 million VND for a yearly ticket.

Currently, the operator only regulates the price by day and month, not by year. With the level of 50 million a year, players only have to spend less than 4.2 million VND a month. Thus, this level is only about 16.8% compared to the current level and 8.4% compared to the plan of the Ministry of Finance.

According to Ho Tram Project Company Limited, maintaining the price of 50 million a year will ensure feasibility and competitiveness with regional markets, while encouraging legal domestic players to choose licensed casino channels. This will contribute to limiting illegal casino activities, maximizing budget revenue from tickets and taxes.

In addition to this company, Phu Quoc Investment and Development Company also proposed a lower price than the Ministry of Finance. Specifically, they said that the 24-hour ticket price should be 1.5 million VND or 35 million VND per month. This price is about 30-40% lower than the proposal of the Ministry of Finance.

However, the Ministry of Finance disagrees with the above recommendations. According to this agency, the proposed price increase is to ensure a correlation with the current level and not to encourage people without financial capacity to play in casinos.

In this respect, the Ministry of Justice believes that raising the entrance fee to assess the financial capacity of the players is inappropriate. The Ministry recommends that the drafting agency study and propose feasible solutions, and explain more clearly the increase in the entrance fee.

However, the Ministry of Finance responded that this content had been reported and approved by the Government and the Politburo . They affirmed that this regulation on financial capacity is to conform to international trends, actual conditions, and limit foreign currency loss due to complicated administrative procedures.

Resolution 8 was issued by the Government last month, allowing qualified Vietnamese to gamble at the Phu Quoc casino project (An Giang province). At the same time, the Government is piloting for 5 years the permission for Vietnamese to gamble at the Ho Tram casino (Ho Chi Minh City) and Van Don casino (Quang Ninh).

Currently, there are 9 casino projects in operation nationwide (6 small scale and 3 large scale). Among them, the first casino to allow Vietnamese people to play is Corona Phu Quoc, invested by Phu Quoc Tourism Investment and Development Joint Stock Company. This casino is part of a project complex with a total investment of more than 50,000 billion VND, including 1,470 gaming machines and 147 gaming tables.

During the 5-year pilot period, the number of Vietnamese people entering the casino accounted for 52% of the total number of visitors, contributing 88% of the casino revenue. In particular, before 2023, due to the Covid epidemic, Vietnamese people accounted for an average of 71% of the total number of visitors and 87.9% of the revenue. By 2024, the number of Vietnamese visitors decreased to 12%, and the revenue also decreased by 71%, from 4,177 billion VND in 2023 to 1,207 billion VND in 2024.

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Source: https://baohaiphong.vn/doanh-nghiep-de-xuat-gia-ve-cho-nguoi-viet-vao-casino-50-trieu-mot-nam-529041.html