Hope for a full recovery of Macau’s embattled gaming industry are soaring, along with gaming revenues.
According to MSN, casinos in the Chinese gaming hub posted gross gaming revenues (GGR) of MOP 14.7 billion (US$1.81 billion) for April, up 15.6 percent from March. The April calculations included two days of the national Labor Day holiday, which began April 28 and continued into May.
The big news was the increase in year-on-year revenues. Total GGR in April was up 450 percent over the same period in 2022. While that’s still short of the 2019 levels, it’s welcome news for operators, who have watched their business recover steadily since borders to the city reopened in January. For the first quarter of 2023, GGR is up 141 percent year on year, to MOP 49.4 billion (US$6.12 billion).
For the Labor Day holiday, the city expected at least 70,000 visitors per day, but welcomed an average of at least 118,000 people on a daily basis. That’s still appreciably less than the 2019 figures, when about 177,000 people came to Macau each day of the five-day celebration.
As reported by Yogonet.com, analysts surveyed by Bloomberg said GGR in Macau may return to 56 percent of pre-pandemic levels in 2023, but a full recovery could take years, especially given Beijing’s crackdown on high-rollers, which slashed its lucrative junket presence from several hundred operations to just 36. But GGR could rebound by 71 percent of 2019’s level next year, the analysts predicted.
GGRAsia reported that a review of “major gaming floors in downtown Macau and Cotai” showed “significant volumes of customers on their mass-market gambling floors.”
The activity and the boost in GGR should “reassure investors of a very clear ramp in demand” into the second quarter, said a note from JP Morgan Securities (Asia Pacific) Ltd.
“We are confident of a ‘strong recovery’ where mass demand comfortably recovers to over 80 percent of pre-Covid levels, versus 70 percent-plus recovery during Chinese New Year,” said analysts DS Kim and Mufan Shi.
John DeCree and Max Marsh of CBRE Securities added that May was “poised for further recovery” in Macau demand.
