The Monticello Grand Casino and Entertainment World, Latin America's largest resort casino, located just south of the Chilean capital Santiago was opened last week with a grand opening show in front of 7,000 guests.
With total expenditures amounting to US$275m, the project was completed through the partnership of Novomatic and South African casino and resort group Sun International. Novomatic and Sun hold 80 per cent of the shares in the property, while the remaining 20 per cent is held by two further international industry partners.
Novomatic chief executive officer Franz Wohlfahrt said: "With this partnership we have managed to realise a totally new dimension of resort casinos in Latin America. It is the biggest private investment of recent years in the South American entertainment industry - and at the same time the biggest ever Austrian investment in Chile. Thus we are consistently following our strategy of securing domestic jobs and the Austrian headquarters through successful investments abroad."
The Monticello Grand Casino and Entertainment World has created jobs for 2,200 staff. The Monticello Grand Casino, which was opened first, one year ago, has already achieved a market share of 37 per cent of the Chilean casino market.
