Casinò di Venezia has 99-year licence - ministry

The Ministry for Finance has explained that the concession to operate the Casinò di Venezia is valid for a 99-year period that commenced in 1999.

"No concession tender is therefore envisaged in this regard," the ministry said in reply to a story in MaltaToday that no tender had been yet issued for the renewal of the licence for the casino.

This sets the Venetian municipality-owned casino apart from other Maltese-owned casinos, which are all bound by 10-year concessions. But it is still unclear as to how casino policy differs across the board: most casinos are the subject of public competition for the lucrative concessions, while the last casino to be opened was not the subject of a tender but an unprecedented 'split-licence'.

Malta has five casino concessions, namely the Dragonara, the Casinò di Venezia, the Manoel Island casino (yet to be opened) and for a casino in Gozo at the Kempinsky Hotel, which was never opened.

The last concession the ministry issued by public tender for the Dragonara casino was in May 2009, and the agreement only finalised in June 2010 – a full 13 months later.

The other casino concession is to Tomino Ltd for the Oracle casino, which in 2006 was converted into a split-licence that gave the operators a permit to apportion their gaming machines and tables between the Oracle in St Paul's Bay and the Casino At Portomaso, in St Julian's.

The split-licence, granted for 10 years in 2006 had not been issued by public tender. Instead it was established by a letter of intent from the finance ministry in 2004. Then-finance minister John Dalli said he signed the letter of intent to set the policy of allocating casino licences to hotels, but added that the letter was “not a licence and only the basis for further discussions and negotiations.”

The first casino was opened in Malta in 1964 as Dragonara Casino. It was initially owned and operated by government, but after a number of management changes, it was sold to a private operator in February, 1999. The Oracle Casino in Bugibba opened its doors in September 1998, while Casino di Venezia started operating in August, 2001.

In June 2006, Portomaso launched its operations and became the fourth casino in to be awarded a ten-year license to operate in Malta.