Macau’s casino revenue fell last month for the 10th straight month as China’s corruption crackdown took a continuing toll on the territory, figures showed yesterday.
Macau saw its second-worst monthly decline of 39 percent for March compared with the same month last year as Beijing encourages the semi-autonomous territory to diversify from gambling and reins in high-rolling visitors from the mainland.
Gross revenue from gambling for last month was 21.49 billion Macau patacas (US$2.69 billion), according to figures from the Macanese Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau.
Photo: Bloomberg
The results were in line with an estimated 40 percent drop by nine analysts polled by Bloomberg News.
Revenue for the first quarter fell 36.6 percent to 64.78 billion patacas.
“We still expect the entire year to show negative growth, [with] every month for the year to be negative,” CLSA Ltd gaming analyst Aaron Fischer told reporters.
“We’ve become more cautious on the sector because we’re seeing bigger declines in VIP [gamblers]. The anti-corruption measures in China have a negative impact on sentiment and people’s desire to travel to Macau,” he said.
Fischer added that he expects the second half of the year to show an improvement, helped by the opening of a new hotel and an expansion to an existing casino resort.
Casino revenue for the territory plunged a record 49 percent year-on-year in February.
The decline has mostly been attributed to a corruption crackdown spearheaded by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), which has dented the VIP gaming market.
Xi stressed during a visit in December last year that the territory’s economy must diversify away from casinos.
Macau, the only part of China where casino gambling is legal, overtook Las Vegas as the world’s casino capital in terms of revenue after the sector was opened up to foreign competition in 2002. Its gambling revenues are still multiple times that of the US city.
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