Macau Gambling Revenue For April Hits Record $1.76 Billion
May 5, 2010 8:23 amThe territory of Macau was in Portuguese hands until 1999, when the Chinese reclaimed sovereignty over the enclave and transformed it into the “Monte Carlo of the Orient” and China’s only legal casino resort.
Macau’s popularity as a tourist resort has continued to grow ever since and having now surpassed Las Vegas as the gambling capital of the world, its casinos seem to be breaking revenue records almost on a monthly basis.
For the month of April, gambling revenue from the resort’s 33 casinos with their 4,811 gaming tables and 14,503 slot machines reached $1.76 billion, beating the previous record set in January and representing a 70% leap in revenue compared to the same period a year ago.
The only dampener on the horizon for investors is the Macau government’s decision to stop all new casino projects for the foreseeable future, in order to diversify the city’s economy into more leisure and entertainment areas. The decision is believed to be a response to the Chinese government’s concern that mainland Chinese were increasingly gambling away their savings at China’s only gambling resort.
In the meantime, the Macau government has allowed developers to complete already approved projects, but have threatened to reclaim idle land held by casino developers without concrete development plans.
Commenting on the future prospects of Macau, Gaming Analyst Steve Schwartz said:
“Macau has undoubtedly become the biggest gaming destination in the world, and it will be interesting to see whether they can keep that up as the government attempts to limit the gaming options. The government and the existing casinos seem to agree that more is not always better.”