{"id":5846,"date":"2020-04-22T11:08:45","date_gmt":"2020-04-22T11:08:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=5846"},"modified":"2026-04-24T05:53:37","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T08:53:37","slug":"macau-may-gaming-revenue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/macau-may-gaming-revenue","title":{"rendered":"Macau GGR to increase in June, Bernstein says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Bernstein analysts expect gaming revenues to grow once border restrictions have been lifted<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Macau.- While the timeline for the loosening of border restrictions remains unknown, the Macau government is putting increasing pressure on China to restart issuing tourist visas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an address to Legislative Assembly, Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng said Macau and China were working together<\/a><\/strong><\/em> to protect the economy of both regions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Ho’s speech, he asked China to increase the number of\u00a0mainland cities\u00a0covered by the Individual Visit Scheme (IVS), once the Covid-19 pandemic has been controlled. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

IVS will allow mainland Chinese living in eligible areas of the mainland to apply for a travel permit to visit Macau\u00a0or Hong Kong\u00a0individually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If that agreement is achieved, the gaming sector could see signs of improvement by the summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sanford Bernstein said: “The gaming operators and other Macau-based contacts we have spoken with do not see any definitive clarity on timing of recovery” including\u00a0\u00a0“visa situation improvement”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Analysts added: “We expect GGR to pick up again in May\/June with loosening travel restrictions, but any strong near-term recovery is unlikely.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This forecast is in line with brokerage Nomura, which said last week it might be 2022 before Macau GGR\u00a0returns to 2019 levels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

JP Morgan Securities (Asia Pacific) Ltd also said in a memo: “We think it\u2019s reasonable to expect 2021 earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation to be similar to that of 2019.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Macau\u2019s April casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) might contract by as much as 95 percent.<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We estimate April may be down 93 per cent to 95 per cent\u2026 assuming no change in travel restrictions,” Bernstein said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We estimate VIP has been stronger than mass, with revenue driven by a very small number of players, with very low hold in VIP and significant volatility,\u201d Bernstein analysts, Vitaly Umansky, Eunice Lee and Kelsey Zhu said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Restrictions during the pandemic crisis on cross-border travel involving Macau, Hong Kong and mainland China had been factors in Macau tourism numbers \u201cdropping to less than a few hundred visitors per day \u2013 versus 100,000-plus in normal times,\u201d the analysts added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bernstein analysts expect gaming revenues to grow once border restrictions have been lifted<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3613,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Macau's gaming sector faces an uncertain recovery timeline despite government efforts to pressure China into restarting tourist visas and expanding the Individual Visit Scheme. Analysts from Bernstein, Nomura, and JP Morgan project a significant GGR contraction for April and do not anticipate a strong near-term recovery, with 2019 GGR levels potentially not returning until 2022. The VIP segment currently outperforms mass, albeit with high volatility.","focusai_entities":"Bernstein, Macau government, Ho Iat Seng, Sanford Bernstein, Nomura, JP Morgan Securities (Asia Pacific) Ltd, Vitaly Umansky, Eunice Lee, Kelsey Zhu","focusai_location":"Macau, China, Hong Kong","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (0.8), operator_casino (1.0), investor_analyst (1.0), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Macau GGR Recovery Timeline","query":"What specific policy changes or epidemiological milestones are required for the Individual Visit Scheme (IVS) to be expanded, and how would this impact the projected GGR recovery timeline for Macau's gaming operators?"},{"label":"VIP vs. Mass Market","query":"Given the current outperformance of the VIP segment with low hold and high volatility, what strategic adjustments are Macau operators implementing to mitigate risk and optimize revenue generation across both VIP and mass market verticals during the recovery phase?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[160,16338,163],"tags":[512,725,257],"class_list":["post-5846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-east-asia-news","category-finance-news","tag-gaming","tag-ggr","tag-macau"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5846"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5858,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5846\/revisions\/5858"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}