Macau gaming operators Wynn Macau Ltd and Sands China Ltd will each be getting the 25 new-to-market live-dealer gaming tables to which they were entitled for their casino resorts Wynn Palace and Parisian Macao respectively, as of January 1, 2018, confirmed the city’s casino regulator.
The news was given in an emailed reply from the regulator, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau – also known by its Portuguese acronym DICJ – following an inquiry from GGRAsia.
“Both Wynn and Venetian have submitted applications for the 25 new gaming tables and DICJ has issued the respective approval,” stated the gaming regulator in a Wednesday email. “The said tables will only be in operation after January 1, 2018,” it added.
In the case of Sands China, the application for the remaining 25 gaming tables was submitted by Venetian Macau Ltd, the entity holding the Macau gaming licence on behalf of the Hong Kong-listed entity.
Shortly before the US$4.4-billion Cotai resort Wynn Palace opened on August 22 2016, Macau’s Secretary for Economy and Finance, Lionel Leong Vai Tac, had said that the property was to receive 150 new-to-market live gaming tables; 100 of them in time for its launch. Wynn Macau Ltd would be granted an additional 50 new-to-market tables in two separate phases: 25 tables as of January 1, 2017; and the remaining 25 on January 1, 2018.
The same-size new-to-market table allocation was granted to the US$2.7-billion Parisian Macao: 150 tables, with 100 for its opening on September 13, 2016 and 50 in two equal tranches on, respectively January 1, 2017 and January 1, 2018.
The Macau government’s table cap policy, effective since 2013, is designed to limit compound annual growth in the number of new live dealer tables in the city’s casinos to 3 percent until the end of 2022, from a base of 5,485 tables recorded at the end of the fourth quarter of 2012.
As of the third quarter 2017 – the most recent available data from the gaming bureau – there were 6,449 live-dealer tables in the Macau market.
