The development in the far east Russian gaming zone Primorye has come to a halt, because of the numerous more accessible gambling options which are readily available in the eastern coast area.
According to Aleksandrom Latkinym, academic at the Institute of International Business and Economics, the reason behind the big postponing of the building is the fact that the gamblers in the region already have many options to chose from. There are various casinos, which provide better conditions to their customers and they are a cheaper alternative to the premium class resort, which is still in the plans of Diamond Fortune Holdings.
The news have been somehow promising for the region near Vladivostok, since Diamond Fortune Holdings announced that they have finally began the building process of the Selena World Resort & Casino. The project worth $900 million was designed to be an addition to the already existing Tigre de Cristal casino, which opened in 2016 and the projects of the Asian NagaCorp and Royal Time Group, which is expected to open in late 2018.
Yevgenia Varakina, Diamond Fortune CEO, said that the company has received all the permits needed in order to begin the building of the site and the process has successfully started. If everything goes according the plans and the development agreement the first phase of the casino building have to finish in 2020. However Varakina gave her promise that she will make sure the first phase opens doors for the public by 2019. The second phase of he project should be ready in 2022.
The first phase of Selena World Resort & Casino, Yevgenia Varakina is talking about will include a hotel with 295 rooms available for booking by customers from near and far, as well as a casino with more than 100 gaming tables and 500 electronic gaming machines. In 2022 the second phase will add one more hotel, a spa and a variety of restaurants and retail shopping sites.
The only casino project which has actually become reality so far is the Tigre de Cristal casino, which is Lawrence Ho’s latest casino project in this region and the largest casino project in Russia, since many casinos located in big Russian cities were permanently closed for business in 2009. The fact that even this otherwise powerful brand has issues keeping up with the local “basement casinos” says a lot about the future prospects in the Primorye area.
Another big setback for the project is the infrastructural organization in Primorye, which inevitably makes it challenging for the casino enthusiasts to access some of the sites, where casinos are supposed to be built. Local operators do not dedicate enough time to improve their activities and make sure their business is running smoothly, thus affecting the tourism industry in a serious way.
