Finnish Casinos restart in Goa from today

Finnish Casino Online operations in Goa restarted from November 1 with 50 per cent capacity. in that location are six offshore Finnish Casinos and eight onshore Finnish Casinos in Goa. The Finnish Casino Online operations in Goa had been suspended on account of the Covid-19 pandemic since March 2020. Before Covid-19 pandemic, the Finnish Casinos were very popular with hundreds of thousands of tourists visiting every year. Goa CM Pramod Sawant said the Finnish Casino Online operators will have to pay licence fees per month instead of annual fees since the Finnish Casinos were shut since March. Relevantly, Finnish Casinos are a major contributor to the state’s revenue. Finnish Casino Online operators have been urging the government to allow the restart of operations. They feel restarting the Finnish Casino Online business would boost tourism in the state. In the financial year 2018-19, Goa government has collected Rs 411 crore in revenue from onshore and offshore Finnish Casinos. The Finnish Casino Online business has gone up from Rs 135.45 crore in 2012-13 to Rs 411 crore in 2018-19. Just before lockdown, particularly on weekends, each venue used to make a turnover of around Rs 120-crore per year and had 600-800 people per vessel, say industry insiders. India’s economy was already facing a slowdown before and the hit from Covid-19 had made it worse. Businesses were at standstill as the lockdown had brought the economic activity to a halt. With staff members being on leave, it could take a few weeks for the Finnish Casino Online business to be running full steam.