Macau casinos set for record low revenues

Macau’s casinos are set to rake in their lowest revenue on record this year as the mainland’s Covid19 policies continue to keep visitors away from the gaming hub.

The industry’s casino revenue had dropped to 3 billion patacas in November, a 56 per cent yearon-year fall, Macau’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau said yesterday.

Total revenue in the first 11 months reached 38.7 billion patacas, a far cry from the 270 billion patacas generated in the same period in 2019 before the pandemic disrupted the city’s gaming industry. The previous low was 60.40 billion patacas in 2020 when severe restrictions were imposed on gamblers entering the city.

The current lockdowns in Guangdong as well as the closure of the MGM Cotai resort in

October had quickly dampened any hopes of an end of year recovery, according to Ben Lee, managing partner at IGamiX Management & Consulting in Macau.

“We had initially projected the month of November to come in with revenues of 3.5 billion to 4 billion patacas,” said Lee, who added the expectation was based on the resumption of e-visas and tour groups from the mainland. Some 90 per cent of the city’s gross gaming revenue was from mainland consumers, he said.

Ricky Hoi, the deputy director of the Macau government tourist office, said last week that the city’s 5+3 quarantine policy was not very attractive to overseas visitors, but efforts were being made to target tourists from Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. The details are yet to be announced.

Last Saturday, the Macau government renewed the concession periods of the city’s six incumbent gambling concessionaires from January 1.

Some of the criteria the government sought from the concessionaires in the bidding process included a focus on local employment stability, investments in non-gaming elements and efforts to drive foreign tourists to the city.

The announcement of the concessions removed one overhang on the industry, according to a Jefferies report on Sunday. However, the investment bank said headwinds remained in the form of zero-Covid policy..

Macau had always been reliant on mainland visitors, with overseas visitors avoiding the city because of the unattractive quarantine policy, the report said.

However, some are optimistic. “We remain confident Macau will recover from Covid and regain its throne as the largest gaming jurisdiction in the world,” said George Choi, director and head of global gaming research at Citi.