In Russia, a Primorsky Krai court has reportedly upheld a decision from the local government to terminate a contract that had given Kazan-based developer, Royal Time Group, permission to construct a $215 million integrated casino resort in the Far East province.

According to a report from Asia Gaming Brief citing a story posted on the Betting Business Russia news portal, the Arbitration Court of Primorsky Krai ruled against the casino developer on June 1, while also ordering it to pay court costs amounting to approximately $212.

After beginning construction in March of 2016, Royal Time Group had reportedly hoped to premiere its Phoenix development later this year complete with a casino offering around 500 slots along with 30 gaming tables. The scheme set for a rural area some 33 miles north of central Vladivostok was to moreover feature a total of about 1,500 rooms in three and four-star hotels but suffered continual delays that saw the firm unable as recently as June of last year to proffer a concrete opening date.

This uncertainty reportedly prompted the local government in March to publicly chastise Royal Time Group about its inability to stick to a previously-agreed development schedule while the next month saw officials cancel the contract they had issued to the firm’s Royal Time Primorye subsidiary. The decision by the local government moreover saw the prospective casino operator lose a sub-lease deal for the land on which the Phoenix scheme was to be built.

Thanks to federal legislation ratified in 2009, Primorsky Krai is one of five disparate Russian regions, which additionally encompass the Kaliningrad Oblast on the Baltic Sea, central Asia’s Altai Krai, the Krasnaya Polyana area near Sochi and sections of the Crimean peninsula, where casino gambling is permitted. The area of around two million people shares a land border with China and is already home to the Tigre De Cristal development with its casino offering 769 slots and 67 gaming tables.

Opened in October of 2015 by operator G1 Entertainment at a cost of approximately $144 million, Tigre De Cristal is set to be joined sometime next year by the nearby Seaside Entertainment Resorts City, which is being developed by Cambodian firm NagaCorp Limited at a cost of $350 million, and the $900 million Selena World Resort and Casino from domestic operator Diamond Fortune Holdings.

“[Tigre De Cristal] is visited by about 1,000 people per day whereas the casino operator started with 100 visitors a day,” Evgeny Polyansky, Vice-Governor for Primorsky Krai, reportedly told Betting Business Russia. “The ratio of foreign and local visitors is almost proportional but 95% of the casino’s revenues come from foreign tourists.”