Macau Casino Revenue Up 25% To $3.92bn In March

The Macau Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau has released is March casino results for the Chinese enclave, revealing a 25.4% rise in revenue to 31.34 billion patacas ($3.92 billion). Macau’s latest tally improved on the gambling resort’s best ever revenue result set back in December 2012 of 28.25 billion patacas ($3.5 billion).
The higher than anticipated revenue figure in the former Portuguese colony reflects the expansion taking place in the Cotai area of Macau, Asia’s equivalent to the Las Vegas Strip. Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd, for instance, has received permission from the Macau government to add a further 50 gambling tables to its Cotai casino, while Sands China Ltd has increased the number of hotel rooms at its Sheraton brand. It is also planning on building a fifth resort in Macau, called The Parisian and costing around $2.5 billion.
Overall, the casino resort’s increased capacity has helped encourage more gamblers to visit Macau and extend their stays. Equally encouraging is the fact that there was strong showing by both mass-market and VIP business.
Macua is the only place in the country where casino gambling is allowed, and since overtaking the Las Vegas Strip in 2006 as the world’s biggest gambling, has grown to six times the size of its nearest competitor. In 2012, Macau’s gambling revenue rose 13.5% to $38 billion, and analysts have been predicting comparably sustained growth this year. Union Gaming Group analyst Grant Govertsen, for example, has forecast an increase of 16% in gambling revenue from 2012.
Also, JP Morgan recently announced: “In 2013, we forecast 13 percent market-wide growth, with the VIP growing 8 percent, and the mass segment growing 26 percent. We view the market’s mass growth potential as being somewhat appreciated by U.S. investors but, for the most part, Macau’s VIP recovery being somewhat underappreciated/overlooked.”