Sri Lanka casino owner partners with Crown Resorts

Ravi Wijeratne, chairman/owner of conglomerate Rank Holdings, operates a port, builds real estate, handles waste-reclamation and is building hydro and wind energy plants. He also has two of the five casino licenses in Sri Lanka. The other three are held by a domestic counterpart, Dhammika Perera, whose worth Forbes Asia estimated last year at US$ 550 million.

Wijeratne was raised in a beach town south of the capital and followed up his schooling in Colombo with a degree from the London School of Accountancy. He got his first gambling license 20 years ago when he bought one of the oldest casinos in Sri Lanka, the Star Dust. He next built the Casino Marina Colombo.

The new wave of casinos in the making not withstanding, betting in Sri Lanka goes back to the horse races under British rule, and before the civil war many top hotels had casinos, but most shut down over the years of fighting. Existing licenses carry an annual tax, which, for Wijeratne, is about US$ 800,000 for both and 5% off his top line every quarter, he says.

But he’s thinking bigger with his looming partnership with billionaire James Packer’s Crown Resorts, mindful of an affluent South Asian market that is currently finding its way elsewhere to frolic. “We have to make star-class hotels, signature restaurants, shopping malls–that’s what I’m planning to bring in my properties,” Wijeratne says. “My plan is to take this country to the next level of tourism in whatever way possible. Gaming is just the icing on the cake.”