Greece’s government is banking on the patience of casino operators after delaying the Hellinikon casino license application deadline by another two months.
On Thursday, Greece’s newly elected Prime Minister Kryiakos Mitsotakis met with billionaire Spiros Latsis, who fronts the Lamda Development consortium that is slated to build the €8b Hellinikon integrated resort project on the site of Athens’ former international airport.
Lamda’s desire to get shovels moving has been hampered by government delays, particularly on the issuing of three ministerial decisions on the project’s environmental impact, its metropolitan park and the project’s one and only casino.
The previous government attempted to pin its failure to issue these decisions in a timely manner on Lamda, but the company went public with the fact that it had filed all its necessary paperwork on schedule in February. The new government now says the land use decisions will be issued by August 10.
Accordingly, the Hellenic Gaming Commission has once again postponed its deadline for interested operators to submit offers on the 30-year monopoly casino tender to September 30. This is two months after the previous deadline of July 31, and well after the original April 22 finish line. Beware of Greeks bearing calendars, apparently.
To date, only one bid – a joint effort by US tribal gaming operator Mohegan Gaming & Entertainment and local construction giant GEK Terna – has been submitted to Greek gaming regulators. But fellow tribal gaming operators Hard Rock International and Malaysia’s Genting are rumored to be preparing their own gaming Tinder profiles in the hopes that Greek regulators will swipe right.
Greece’s new government appears determined to differentiate itself from the previous administration by jamming a cattle prod into long-stalled projects. Various members of the new cabinet plan to meet every Friday to ensure the ministerial decisions are issued according to the new schedule, which they claim will be a tough slog due to the previous government having lied about the progress made on certain files.
