Closure “despite negotiations”
Macau junket operator the Gold Moon Group has closed its last room at Wynn Macau, according to GGRAsia. The publication reported the news came from the junket operator’s staff and a local casino labor group, Forefront of Macao Gaming. The suspension took effect Saturday, May 21.
An internal notice from Forefront of Macao Gaming indicated that the termination was carried out at the request of Wynn Macau, not Gold Moon. Neither party commented on the suspension, but the labor group issued a statement saying, “Due to the impact of the overall economic environment, Wynn has decided to terminate cooperation with the group this month, despite rounds of negotiations.”
The labor group added that Gold Moon Group was “terminating all labor relations” with its staff at the VIP room. A Gold Moon VIP room at Altira Macau, a resort in Taipa operated by Melco Crown Entertainment, will continue to operate.
As of January 2015, Gold Moon Group had 70 VIP tables in Macau at Wynn Macau, Altira, Galaxy Macau and Macau Legend Development Ltd.’s Pharaoh’s Palace Casino at the Landmark Hotel, a sub-concessionaire of SJM Holdings Ltd. A number of VIP rooms have closed in the jurisdiction as VIP gaming revenue shrinks. In January 2016, the number of licensed junket operators had dropped 23 percent year-on-year to 141—a 40 percent drop from 2013, when 235 rooms operated in the city, according to the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau.
“Consolidation in the Macau junket space is a continuing theme. The junket operators and international marketing people we spoke with believe the number of junkets in Macau will continue to decline as increasing regulation and scrutiny make it more difficult to do business for smaller junkets,” Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd. wrote in a report. The brokerage said the top four junket operators in Macau—including Suncity Group, Guangdong Group, Golden Group and Tak Chun Group—now command “over 70 percent of junket VIP market share” in Macau, with Suncity Group dominating that pack with almost 40 percent of market share.
Despite the rash of closures, “several junkets commented that bad debt issues were easing slowly and that the collections by agents have started to improve: if this trend continues it would bode well for tempering some of the VIP headwinds,” said Sanford Bernstein.
