Macau’s 2025 casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) is forecast to reach MOP240 billion (US$29.9 billion), says the Office of the Chief Executive (CE), in the financial-year 2025 budget plan published on Thursday, and which has been submitted to the city’s Legislative Assembly.
That would be a 31.1 percent rise on the MOP183.06 billion achieved in 2023, the first year of trading since pandemic-related restrictions were lifted. It would be an 82.1-percent recovery rate compared to the MOP292.46 billion in the pre-pandemic trading year of 2019, as per data of the local regulator.
The 2024 budget plan predicted MOP216 billion GGR for this year. The tally for the calendar year to the end of October is MOP190.14 billion. The 2025 budget would represent year-on-year growth of 11.1 percent from the forecast for 2024.
The 2025 budget plan estimates the Macau government will collect MOP84.0 billion in gaming taxes from the city’s six casino concessionaires for financial year 2025. That is calculated based only from the levy of the so-called “special gaming tax”, which stands at 35 percent of GGR for the current 10-year gaming concessions that started from January 1, 2023.
With other contributing levies for social causes, the effective tax on Macau casino GGR is 40 percent for the current concession term.
The budget plan is due to be discussed by a plenary session of the city’s assembly on Tuesday (November 19).
“It is estimated that the recovery momentum of the integrated tourism and leisure businesses for the next fiscal year [2025] will continue, with a continuous rise in inbound tourist volume, albeit their travel and consumption patterns may see changes,” the Office of the Chief Executive stated in its fiscal year 2025 budget plan.
“Integrated tourism and leisure businesses” is a term used by the authorities to indicate the casino resort sector.
The chief executive office added: “Considering all factors, the fiscal year 2025 gross gaming revenue is estimated to reach MOP240 billion. Such is the principal fiscal income that serves as a foundation for the Macau Special Administrative Government in formulating the fiscal year 2025 budget plan.”
Post the Covid-19 pandemic, Macau’s fiscal income had seen a “gradual recovery” since 2023, as economic improvement had been led by the integrated tourism and leisure sector, the document also mentioned.
For the whole of fiscal year 2024, the Macau government had forecast it would collect MOP75.6 billion in gaming taxes from the casino concessionaires, levied as special gaming tax, according to the 2024 budget plan.
The 2025 plan will be current Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng’s ultimate fiscal-year budget proposal before stepping down at the end of his five-year term.
Sam Hou Fai, most recently president of Macau’s Court of Final Appeal, the city’s most senior judicial position, is to succeed Mr Ho as the city’s leader, with a swearing-in ceremony to be held in December.
(Updated 10.23am, Nov 15)
