Macau Casino Revenue Beats Expectations Again in November

Macau’s thriving gambling market continues to pick up pace as 2018 enters its final stretch, and in November the island resort saw its revenue soar by 23% to $2.9 billion, representing its highest growth rate in four months. Impressively, that figure was at least 4% higher than the 19% median estimates forecast by seven analysts in a Bloomberg survey, with October also being the fifth straight month that Macau’s gross gaming revenue (GGR) had come in at above market expectations.
The latest results released by the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau now marks 16th months of consecutive growth for the world’s biggest gambling destination. Furthermore, revenues have grown by 19.5% for the first 11 months of this year, versus the same period of time in 2016.
Helping to explain the recent surge in business is the return of VIP gamblers to Macau as the government eases back on its anti-corruption campaign, as well as a general increase in the number of high spending casual gamblers visiting from mainland China. Commenting upon the shifting dynamics, Grant Govertsen, analyst at Union Gaming Securities Asia Ltd, said that Macau has been experiencing an increase in the volume of “better quality gaming customer” visiting the resort.
There are currently 37,000 hotel rooms available in Macau, and elaborating further on their allocation, Govertsen noted: “In other words, lower-quality visitors are generally being replaced by higher-quality visitors [mostly due to] a greater number of hotel rooms available to marketing teams that can then be allocated to high quality players.”
Prior to the present 16-month stretch of revenue growth, Macau’s casino market was severely dented by an anti-corruption campaign which ultimately resulted in a roughly three-year downturn in its lucrative industry. The government may now have eased up on its campaign, but local regulators are still ensuring new government guideline are being met, including applying stricter standards when licensing junket operators, and ensuring the casinos improve their overall non-gaming commitments.
Following in the footsteps of Las Vegas, Macau is concentrating on becoming an all-round tourist destination, complete with a vast choice of fine restaurants, shopping, and entertainments. There are still major differences between the world’s two biggest gambling destinations, though, and citing an example, Govertsen explains:
“For instance, nobody really cares about nightclubs in Macau, whereas in Las Vegas, that is one of the biggest reasons you come here. For a lot of people, that trumps gaming as a reason to come here. And [in Macau] that still isn’t the case.”