Casino revenue in Macau, the world’s largest casino hub, surged 66 percent to 18.9 billion patacas (US$2.36 billion) last month as an increasing number of Chinese gamblers visited the city.
Sales for casinos in Macau, the only place in China where they are legal, surged 58 percent to 188.3 billion patacas last year, according to data from Macau’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau.
China, which contributes more than half the number of tourists to Macau, may have grown 10 percent last year, according to the median forecast of 18 economists surveyed by Bloomberg.
Macau’s visitor arrivals rose 15 percent to 22.7 million in the first 11 months of last year, with more than 80 percent coming from China and Hong Kong, the city’s tourism agency said. Tourists from China increased 20.5 percent in the same period, according to the agency’s data.
“The key driver was the higher average spend by an increasing number of mainland tourists,” Aaron Fischer, a Hong Kong-based analyst for CLSA Ltd said yesterday. “What surprised us was how strong the growth remained in the second part of December.”
Shares in Wynn Macau Ltd (永利澳門), the Hong Kong-listed casino unit of Wynn Resorts Ltd (永利度假村), climbed 5.7 percent, the most in more than two months, to HK$18.40, the highest since it started trading in October 2009.
Shares billionaire Stanley Ho’s (何鴻燊) SJM Holdings Ltd (澳門博彩控) rose 3.4 percent to HK$12.76, Sands China Ltd (金沙中國) gained 1.6 percent to HK$17.36 and Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd (銀河娛樂集團) surged 5.6 percent to HK$9.29.
Melco International Development Ltd (新濠國際發展), which has a joint venture with Australian billionaire James Packer’s Crown Ltd, advanced 5.9 percent to HK$4.70.
“We believe gaming revenues will remain extremely robust in 2011 and increase by at least 20 percent during the year,” Fischer said.
“We also expect another 25 percent growth next year as 2012 benefits from a full year of two new large scale resorts being opened,” he said.
Galaxy is building a US$1.9 billion casino resort, which it plans to open this year, on the Cotai Strip, where Sands China operates the Venetian Macau and Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd has its City of Dreams.
Sands China is building St Regis, Shangri-La, Sheraton and Traders resorts on sites five and six of the Cotai Strip. Billionaire Sheldon Adelson, Las Vegas Sands Corp’s chief executive officer, has said he plans to recreate the Las Vegas Strip on the 2,880m length of reclaimed land between Macau’s Coloane and Taipa Islands, to boost the non-gambling portion of casino operators’ earnings.
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