Mohegan’s Korean IR development Inspire on time and on budget for 4Q23 launch

Providing an update during Mohegan’s earnings call for the June 2023 quarter, President and CEO Ray Pineault told analysts the company was not expecting any last-minute hiccups as it nears completion of Mohegan Inspire’s US$1.6 billion Phase 1 development.

“On a funding perspective we feel very confident that we’ve built in all the costs to the property opening to complete construction and get it open and operating. As for timing … we don’t anticipate anything in our current view that [there is going to be] any delay to our opening,” said Pineault, reiterating that, as per local requirements, Mohegan would open non-gaming amenities first followed by the casino in early 2023.

“As we’ve said we’ve got to open the hotel and the non-gaming amenities to get our rating of the hotels to get the casino license. That will follow the opening of the non-gaming amenities which is scheduled for the fourth quarter of this year. It would take something really abnormal to prevent us from achieving that goal.”

While Mohegan is yet to receive clarity over exactly when it might be permitted to open its Incheon casino, Pineault said the company would endeavour to minimize any delays.

“We definitely have to open without the casino initially – that’s a condition of our agreement with the government,” he explained. “We obviously want to make it as short a period of time as possible. We don’t control that although we keep speaking with the agencies we’ll be working with to get that casino license, but we don’t have a date as it’s out of our control. We do have some target dates we’ve been communicating with the agencies and trying to narrow that down.”

When complete, the integrated resort will feature three hotel towers with a combined 1,200 rooms, an arena, a foreigner-only casino, dining, retail, convention and entertainment options, a year-round indoor water dome experience and an outdoor family park.

It will become the second integrated resort to open in Incheon after Paradise City – the latter being a joint venture partnership between Korea’s Paradise Co and Japanese gaming firm Sega Sammy Holdings.