Macau Gambling Revenue Rises To $2.3 Billion In January 2011

As Las Vegas casinos continue to languish in the doldrums, the world’s most popular gambling resort of Macau has posted yet another rise in its monthly revenue figures of 33% in January to $2.3 billion.
The actual amount of revenue taken was the third largest ever recorded, with analysts surprised to see such strong results in January, at a time when there is traditionally a slight lull in activity ahead of the Chinese New Year holiday starting Wednesday. 
In 2010, Mainland China and Hong Kong provided around 83% of Macau’s 25 million tourist to the enclave and commenting on January’s impressive figures, analyst Gabriel Chan from Credit Suisse said:
 
“Chinese New Year is always a low season…33 percent growth is quite decent indeed so that is why I am still confident with my full-year 29 percent growth outlook.”
Despite the Chinese governments attempts to encourage Macau to diversify away from the lucrative gambling industry, analysts remained bullish that Macau’s future growth would remain high without any major credit tightening moves by the Chinese government.
February is also expected to be a particularly strong month with the arrival of droves of Chinese gamblers over the holiday period, with RBS analyst Philip Tulk forecasting around 20.5 billion patacas ($2.56 billion) in revenue for the month.
Macau’s gambling industry took a knock-back in 2009 due to the global financial crisis, swine flu and mainland visa restriction. The resort took $14.89 billion that year, but things have turned around since then with a 58% rise in revenue in 2010 to $23.51 billion.
Macau’s top casinos are run by six main companies and according to the MD Times the market share tally is currently divided up as follows:
SJM 31%; Las Vegas Sands 18%; Melco Crown Entertainment 14.5%; Wynn Resorts 13.8%;  Galaxy 11%; and MGM Macau 10.5%.