Casino revenue declines in Macau

August figures indicate that casino revenue in the Chinese gambling hub of Macau declined by 8.6% when compared to the previous year.

Macau.- The Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau of Macau (DICJ) announced on Sunday that gambling revenue in the city decreased 8.6% in August. The industry was hit by a reduction in demand from high rollers after slowing economic growth due to a trade war between China and the United States.

Revenue during last month’s operations was €2.73 billion, slightly lower than July’s €2.74 billion but below analysts’ expectations of a drop between 2% and 6%.

The DICJ also explained that, although expected, protests in Hong Kong contributed to the bad results in August. However, they were not as impactful as they could have been in August.

Hong Kong airport did not impact Macau, Nomura said

Last month, brokerage Nomura analysts had already said that the two-day shut down of the airport did not hurt GGR for the week between August 12-18. “We estimate daily GGR last week was around €97.2 million (€91.7 million per day month-to-date), up approximately 7% sequentially from our estimate for the prior week (€90.8 million/day),” said Instinet LLC, a research arm of Japanese brokerage Nomura.

Analysts Harry Curtis, Daniel Adam and Brian Dobson added: “Protests in Hong Kong and the temporary closing of the airport had no effect on the weekly GGR number, it seems.”