Typhoon slashes Macau’s September GGR

According to brokerages Nomura and Sanford C. Bernstein, gross gaming revenue in the Chinese territory will be lower than expected.

Macau.- Typhoon Mankhut struck southeast Asia and forced casinos in Macau to shut down their operations over the weekend. According to financial research firms, Nomura and Sanford C. Bernstein, the storm’s impact will also hurt gross gaming revenue (GGR) projections for September, lowering the estimates by a couple of millions.

The Japan-based brokerage announced its company Instinet had cut its original GGR forecast of €2.59 billion to €2.48 billion, which is lower than expected but still 10% better year-on-year. “Typhoons tend to interrupt travel for short periods but, consistent with past instances, they do not change underlying demand trends,” its report said to explain why it didn’t change its forecast for the third quarter.

Meanwhile, Sanford C. Bernstein slashed its projection by an 8% margin from €2.33 billion to €2.25 billion. “Based on our checks, the damage from the typhoon to casino properties is immaterial and the city is progressing with clean-up efforts,” the brokerage explained.

Furthermore, according to Union Gaming Securities Asia Ltd analyst Grant Govertsen, the business break impacted on the annual growth rate of September’s GGR and took – at least – 500 basis points off it. “Given that the blanket casino closure happened on an all-important weekend day, which typically generates significantly higher GGR than a weekday, we expect that somewhere between €117 billion and €160 billion in GGR will be lost,” Mr Govertsen wrote