Macau gaming tax revenue down 44.5% for first nine months

The government has collected just over MOP15.12bn (US$1.87bn) in fiscal revenue from direct taxes on gaming up to September.

Macau.- The Financial Services Bureau has reported that Macau collected MOP915.8m in fiscal revenue from direct taxes on gaming in September. Up 274.7 per cent from August’s MOP244.4m (US$30.2m), the figure takes the total for the first nine months of 2022 to just over MOP15.12bn (US$1.87bn), a drop of 44.5 per cent year-on-year.

Macau revised its 2022 budget earlier this year to increase social spending in a bid to mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the city’s economy. It lowered its full-year gaming tax forecast from MOP49.76bn to MOP34.37bn. However, revenue for the first nine months has reached only 44 per cent of that revised figure.

Macau taxes casino GGR at 39 per cent: 35 per cent in direct government taxes and the remainder from community levies. 

Macau: suspicious gaming transaction reports down 15.5% in first nine months

Macau’s Financial Intelligence Office has reported that the number of Suspicious Transaction Report (STRs) filed by casino operators fell by 15.5 per cent year-on-year to 866 for the first nine months of this year. Gaming alerts accounted for 51.6 per cent of all suspicious transactions flagged in Macau between January 1 and September 30.

In the same period last year, casino operators reported 1,025 notifications. The total number of suspicious transactions in Macau for the first three quarters was 1,677, down 13.4 per cent year-on-year. 

Financial and insurance institutions accounted for 611 reports, down 8.1 per cent and representing 36.5 per cent of all suspicious transactions. Reports about other institutions totalled 200, down 19 per cent year-on-year.