The old adage ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ certainly applies for Jupiters Casino in Townsville. The casino was recently purchased from Echo Entertainment by Colonial Leisure Group, and the new owners have no plans to make any big changes. Townsville Casino was sold last week for $70 million. Echo Entertainment handed ownership over to a private company called Colonial Leisure Group, which operates several hotels across the country.

Echo Entertainment had planned on selling the casino for over a year – but not because there was anything wrong with the property. Townsville Casino remained profitable and successful in the local gambling market, but Echo Entertainment simply wanted to focus its efforts on its other properties in Brisbane and Sydney. The issue with Townsville Casino was that there is little room to expand the property and the gaming operations.

Townsville is quite a small gambling market, and there is no room to develop an integrated casino resort in the city. As such, Echo Entertainment would prefer to work on the expansion of Brisbane’s Treasury Casino and Sydney’s Star Casino, as there is the potential for those properties to be turned into resorts.

Since Townsville Casino is already very successful, Colonial Leisure Group did not enter into the acquisition deal with plans to make changes to the property. The operator has mentioned the possibility of changing the loyalty program, but there are no other reforms on the table at the moment.

"Moving forward, once settlement occurs, there could be changes to the rewards program but its very, very early on and we haven't had the opportunity to work through with Colonial exactly what they want to do with that,” says Will Keiler, COO of Echo Entertainment. It will be interesting to see how the casino changes and how it will stay the same under new ownership.

About the Author

George Anderson
Author George, has over 25+ years’ experience in the Pokies and Casinos industry throughout Australia and New Zealand. Loves to research new Pokies games on the block and follows announcements from top industry providers about their upcoming releases. As soon as a new interesting pokie game appears on his radar, George is there to check it out and give you the scoop before anyone else and tell you about all casino sites where can play the latest game. Before this gig, George worked as Pokie game tester, making him an ideal candidate for this genre of work. He is also an animal lover and a proud owner of three dogs.