Macau Casino Revenues Up 5.5% To $3.3bn In August

The Macau Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ) has now released its casino revenue figures for August revealing a 5.5% increase in revenue to 26.14 billion patacas ($3.27 billion) compared to the same month last year.
The 5.5% growth rate for the month may have been lower than the forecast made by analysts, but the August revenue total was still the second highest ever generated in the Chinese gambling enclave, topped only by the 26.8 billion patacas taken by Macau casinos in October 2011.
Commenting on th latest financial figures, CIMB Group analyst Michael Ting said: “It doesn’t seem to be getting worse, so I think gross gaming revenue growth for the rest of the year will just tread around mid single digits or so.”
This revised estimation for gambling revenue growth in Macau for 2012 comes after analysts initially predicted a 20% increase at the beginning of the year. However, the economic slowdown in China has already started to affect various markets and industries from manufacturing to property, and now casinos. In turn, super-wealthy VIP gamblers have felt the pinch while also being impacted by rising credit difficulties.
In July, casino revenues increased by their slowest rate since 2009 at just 1.5% to 24.58 billion patacas ($3.08 billion), and for the first eight months of 2012 revenue is up by 15% overall compared to 42% for the whole of last year worth $33.5 billion.
Looking ahead to September, Sterne Agee analyst David Bain commented: “We expect September to reach a growth of 10 percent year-on-year, though September’s absolute gross gaming revenue will decline from August marking back to school, the end of the summer travel season and anticipation of the October Golden Week holiday.”
The former Portuguese colony of Macau was returned to the Chinese back in 1999 and is currently the only place where casino gambling is permitted inside the country. Then in 2002, foreign operators were allowed into the market, such as large Las Vegas companies, transforming Macau into the world biggest gambling destination. In 2011, Macau generated five times as much revenue than Las Vegas.