DS Kim, an analyst with JP Morgan, says Macau will start to see a market recovery as early as the first few months of 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Macau.- DS Kim<\/strong>, an analyst with JP Morgan<\/strong>, has predicted that Macau\u2019s gaming industry could reach 95 per cent of pre-pandemic levels in two years\u2019 time. Kim says the recovery will be driven by pent-up demand from an expanding mass market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n DS Kim cited two reasons for the optimistic outlook: Macau’s policy allowing the government to lower taxes <\/strong>by up to 5 percentage points for operators that attract more foreign tourists and an increase in the market-wide cap on gaming tables<\/strong> to 6,000 from January (around 4,000 tables were directly operated by casinos in 2019).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The government has set the minimum annual gaming revenue<\/strong> expected from each gaming table at MOP7m (US$875,000), and the minimum from each machine at MOP300,000. Machine numbers are limited to 12,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kim forecast that EBITDA<\/strong> will start to recover in the first quarter of 2023 as mass market demand returns to around 35 per cent of pre-Covid levels, before hitting around 50 per cent over the next two quarters. Normal ass demand will not fully return until 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Macau\u2019s GGR<\/a> for the first eleven months of 2022 <\/strong>combined stands at MOP38.7bn, down 50.9 per cent year-on-year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Legislative Assembly is expected to vote on Macau\u2019s new junket law<\/a> on December 15. The bill would allow junket operators to each work with only one casino operator<\/a>. Individuals will no longer be licensed as intermediaries; only companies incorporated in Macau. <\/p>\n\n\n\n All junket applications will be decided by the Minister of Commerce and Finance rather than the gaming regulator, the DICJ. Junket operators and agents must open accounts with gaming franchises to deposit cash and chips related to gaming. The funds must be owned by an intermediary or agent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another proposed licensing condition is that junkets must hold MOP10m (US$1.24m) in share capital in addition to a bank guarantee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" DS Kim, an analyst with JP Morgan, says Macau will start to see a market recovery as early as the first few months of 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":20685,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"JP Morgan analyst DS Kim forecasts Macau's gaming market will begin recovery in Q1 2023, driven by mass market demand, tax incentives for foreign tourists, and increased gaming table caps, aiming for 95% of pre-pandemic GGR within two years. Concurrently, Macau's Legislative Assembly is set to vote on a new junket bill that will significantly restructure their operations, requiring companies to be licensed, work with only one casino, and meet stringent financial and operational criteria.","focusai_entities":"DS Kim, JP Morgan, Macau government, DICJ, Legislative Assembly","focusai_location":"Macau","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (1.0), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (1.0), payments_fraud_aml (0.8), investor_analyst (1.0), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Junket Bill Impact?","query":"How will the new junket licensing framework, particularly the 'one junket, one casino' rule and increased capital requirements, reshape the VIP segment's contribution to Macau's GGR and the operational dynamics for concessionaires?"},{"label":"Foreign Tourist Incentives?","query":"What specific mechanisms will the Macau government implement to attract 'foreign tourists' to qualify operators for tax reductions, and what is the projected timeline for this policy to materially impact mass market recovery?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[157,16338],"tags":[23906],"class_list":["post-777000751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-news","category-east-asia-news","tag-macau-casinos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777000751","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\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777000751"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777000751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777000782,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777000751\/revisions\/777000782"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777000751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777000751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777000751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Vote on Macau junket bill to take place on December 15<\/h2>\n\n\n\n