Genting in the red after closing Britain’s oldest casino
The UK arm of Genting fell into the red in the year after closing Britain’s oldest casino, it has been revealed.
The Birmingham-headquartered division made a pre-tax loss of £6.2m for 2024, having previously posted a profit of £8m in 2023.
New accounts filed with Companies House also show its revenue rose over the same period from £283.8m to £323.1m.
Genting is one of the largest casino operators in the UK – owning 58 of the total 154 licenses as of the end of last year.
Its portfolio also includes Resorts World in Birmingham as well as a casino in Cairo.
The results come after Genting closed Britain’s oldest casino, the Crockford Club in Mayfair, after 195 years in October 2023.
The building was put on the market but Genting later decided to premarket it for rent.
As a result, the property was reclassified from an asset held for sale to an investment property and the company incurred an impairment charge of £10.3m.
Genting also continued to close other underperforming casinos in 2024.
The average casino spend per customer increased from £96 to £97 in the year while the total number of attendance rose by 10 per cent to almost three million.
The wider Genting Group is headquartered in Malaysia and was founded by Lim Goh Tong in 1965.
Casino giant Genting eyes future growth
A statement signed off by the board said: “The group has continued to perform strongly during the current year with operating profit before exceptional items from continuing operations increasing from £22.5m to £24.6m despite the continuing cost-of-living pressures on customers’ discretionary spend and the ongoing impact of elevated levels of inflation on operating costs.
“Customer visits were ahead of last year due to the policy of driving a greater volume of customer visits in certain venues and revenues were all ahead of the prior year across all its operating divisions.”
Genting added: “Resorts World Birmingham continued to perform strongly in the current year, with continued growth in revenue on prior year.
“The Genting Hotel was the market leader in the area and the introduction of new leisure offerings has helped to drive profitable growth at the resort.”
On its future, the casinos giant said: “The focus of the group over the coming year will be to manage the impact of inflationary pressures on costs and customer spend and ensure the group is in a position to act on the UK government’s gambling review.
“The longer-term focus will be on increasing market share in both the core and London premium/mass markets and improving business efficiency.
“The group will also focus on growing revenue and profitability of Resorts World Birmingham by expanding the leisure offering.”