Casino revenue up in Macau in September

Gambling revenue in Macau’s casinos increased 0.6% year-on-year during September’s operations, the local regulator revealed.

Macau.- Macau has ended a two-month streak of negative results in September. Casinos in the Chinese territory registered a 0.6% year-on-year increase during last month’s operations to €2.5 billion. The 0.6% increase was a figure that analysts expected.

The Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ) reported that gaming gross revenue (GGR) was €2.5 billion. This is an increase from the €2.4 billion registered during the same period last year. Moreover, the results from September indicate that year-to-date GGR was €24.9 billion, a 1.7% decline year-on-year.

In order for Macau to post an overall positive result at the end of 2019, casinos must report impressive results in Q4. That three-month period will include the Golden Week holiday, which started on Tuesday and will finish tomorrow. However, Bernstein said that higher-end gaming will be modest during these days.

Analysts’ expectations

Bernstein had initially predicted that GGR would increase 7% year-on-year in September. However, a couple of weeks after that estimation, the brokerage predicted a revenue decrease of 1% to a 1% rise in Macau in September.

Brokerage Nomura also forecasted “low single-digit” GGR growth in Macau. “We estimate GGR should settle around €2.47 billion to €2.58 billion,” wrote Nomura’s Harry Curtis, Daniel Adam and Brian Dobson in August.

August results

In August, the industry suffered a reduction in demand from high rollers after slowing economic growth due to a trade war between China and the United States. Casinos posted an 8.6% decline in GGR. Revenue was €2.73 billion, slightly lower than July’s €2.74 billion. This was below analysts’ expectations of a drop between 2% and 6%.