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The December financial report of Korean casino operator Grand Korea Leisure Co., Ltd. had a disappointing ending to a difficult year for the company, as revenue dropped substantially from November’s results. According to an official submission to the Korea Exchange on December 28, 2025, GKL’s total gaming sales in December were KRW 36.30 billion (around US$25.1 million), the decrease of 6.4% from the same month last year, and in line with the downward trend in revenues during December, the busiest month for gaming.
In addition to the year-on-year comparison, there are also concerns about the month-on-month trend, as GKL reported an even larger decline in December vs. November of 13.0%. While foot traffic at all three casinos remained strong, it would indicate GKL did not convert those visitors into revenue at the same level, which is unusual in the peak gaming periods of November and December and represents an issue for GKL going forward. GKL is a subsidiary of the Korea Tourism Organization, Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, and has three foreigner-only casinos under its Seven Luck brand: one located in Seoul, the flagship casino in the Gangnam district, and another in Busan.
Table Games Drag Down Performance
Breaking down the revenue, including gaming, and looking at it from a different perspective, it is shown that the decrease is greatly attributed to the table gaming business. Table gaming revenues for the month of December landed at around KRW 33.07 billion, down by a significant 7.4 percent from last year. What is even more significant is the fact that they fell by as much as 13.8 percent from November, with table games resulting as the main cause of the slowdown for the month.
On a positive note, however, the machine gaming market showed a slight spark of good news, which was not sufficient to mitigate the negative movement. Slot games and electronic gaming registered revenues of KRW 3.23 billion for that month, which showed a 5.6% increase from a year ago but a decrease of 4.1% from a month earlier. This mixed bag of results underscores the uneven recovery and spending patterns of the foreign clientele that GKL relies upon.
Drop Volume Shows Resilience
Despite the dip in final sales revenue, the underlying volume of play, known as the “drop,” showed signs of health. The aggregate casino drop across GKL’s three venues reached KRW330.37 billion in December. This represents a robust 19.8 percent increase from a year earlier and a slight 1.0 percent rise from November. The disconnect between rising drop amounts and falling sales revenue points to a lower hold rate for the house during the period, meaning players won more than the statistical average, temporarily denting the operator’s top line.
This operational quirk did not derail the company’s annual growth trajectory. The December results took GKL’s aggregate casino sales for the full year of 2025 to just over KRW425.3 billion, an 8.0 percent improvement on the totals from 2024. Similarly, the total casino drop for the year rose to approximately KRW3.70 trillion, up 1.5 percent year-on-year, representing a stable, if slow, expansion in gaming activity.
Gangnam Leads the Pack
Throughout 2025, the Gangnam property remained the crown jewel of the portfolio. The figures indicate that the Seoul Gangnam casino was the biggest contributor to group-wide sales at almost KRW205.61 billion for the whole year. The counterpart in the capital, the Seoul Dragon City casino, generated almost KRW150.67 billion in sales for the year under review. The Busan Lotte casino, located on the southern coast, recorded KRW69.05 billion in annual sales.
Source: GGR Asia
