Macau’s October casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) was up 30.6 percent month-on-month, at just over MOP19.50 billion (US$2.42 billion), said on Wednesday the local regulator, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau.
It was the best monthly performance since January 2020, at the very beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, when the city’s GGR stood at MOP22.13 billion.
Brokerage JP Morgan Securities (Asia Pacific) Ltd said in a Wednesday memo that October GGR – as well being “the highest print in 45 months” – also “comfortably beat” market consensus MOP19.2 billion, a figure that had already been revised from a month-earlier estimate of MOP19.0 billion.
Analysts DS Kim, Mufan Shi and Selina Li added the October tally “suggests mass GGR finally recovered beyond pre-Covid levels for the first time, to 105 percent of October 2019”. They also noted performance had been “underpinned by a robust Golden Week”.
The first six days of October formed part of the eight-day autumn Golden Week holiday in mainland China.
In September, Macau GGR fell by 13.2 percent month-on-month, following an August GGR result of MOP17.21 billion, which had been the best monthly performance since January 2020.
The October tally was up 400.2 percent from a year ago, a period when Covid-related travel restrictions were still in place. It represented 73.7 percent of October 2019 levels, according to official data.
The latest data took Macau’s GGR for the 10 months to October 31 to nearly MOP148.45 billion, up 315.6 percent from the comparable 2022 period.
(Updated 3.02pm, November 1)
