Casino revenue in Macau increased last month, extending the industry’s recovery to a fifth month as the Chinese gambling hub’s efforts to reinvent itself drew more tourists from beyond China.
Gross gaming revenue rose 8 percent from a year earlier to 19.8 billion Macau patacas (US$2.48 billion), according to data from the Macanese Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, following a 14.4 percent increase in November last year.
GAMING REVENUE
For the full year, casino revenue fell 3.3 percent to 223.2 billion patacas, easing from the 34.3 percent drop recorded in 2015.
Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg expect a 7 percent increase in gambling revenue this year, in a recovery led by mass market players.
“We continue to believe that while the market is stabilizing, we won’t see a v-shaped recovery like we did in 2010 and 2013,” Wells Fargo Securities’ Cameron McKnight wrote in a note before the release.
The analyst cited macroeconomic and policy as among the risks facing Macau in the near term, along with new supply of casinos being planned by operators.
Macau is increasing its oversight of gambling after China’s anti-corruption campaign scared off high-stakes VIP bettors, causing a steep casino downturn since the middle of 2014.
Operators such as Las Vegas Sands Corp and Wynn Resorts Ltd have since opened resorts with more tourist-friendly features, sparking a rise in visitors from countries such as South Korea, Japan and the US, even as arrivals from China slipped.
TIGHTENING
Property tightening measures by the Chinese government to cool the overheated market might also be affecting gambling in Macau, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co analyst Vitaly Umansky said.
“We expected the cooling real-estate market may bring some headwinds on the Macau VIP sector,” he wrote.
Macau had ended a two-year economic contraction in the third quarter of last year, with GDP growing 4 percent from a year earlier, amid the recovery in gaming revenue.
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