So far in January, Macau has seen a lower wager per premium mass player and a lower number of “whales” – players that have a bet size of HKD100,000 (US$12,846) or more – compared to the same period in January 2024. That is according to bank Citigroup’s January survey of this segment of play, drawing comparison wiith its equivalent 2024 survey.
Referring to a seasonal holiday China’s State Council designates on the Chinese mainland, Citigroup stated: “Chinese New Year [CNY] Golden Week is coming earlier this year (January 28 to February 4 versus February 10 to February 17 last year).”
As a result, for the institution’s latest monthly bet survey, “we saw some signs of… pre-CNY slowdown… that we did not see in January 2024,” noted analysts George Choi and Timothy Chau.
They said the “most obvious” indicator was “the lower number of whales seen,” i.e., 24 this time versus 27 a year ago, and “the lower wager per player,” namely HKD20,160 for this survey, relative to HKD21,581 in January 2024.
Nonetheless the premium mass wager aggegate observed by Citigroup this time was up year-on-year, at HKD12.8 million, which it said was around 11 percent higher than the 2024 January review. That total wager amount was spiked by a circa 19-percent rise in the number of premium mass player count, which reached 636 as of the institution’s latest monthly survey.
Citigroup ranked Macau casino operator Sands China Ltd top in its January premium mass survey, with a circa 28 percent market share of industry wager observed by the institution. Market rival Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd was adjudged to have a circa 27 percent market share.
“Wynn [Macau Ltd] seems to have lost some share [of total premium mass wager] on our count, likely due to the major renovation works at Wynn Encore,” noted Citigroup’s analysts, referring to Wynn Macau’s downtown property in Macau peninsula.
As of its latest survey, Citigroup also concluded that although it saw “fewer whales” on a year-on-year basis, the whales that it observed “wagered significantly more” versus a year ago.
“Average wager per whale of HKD195,000 was 37 percent higher than that of January 2024 (HKD142,778),” wrote the Citigroup analysts.
They added: “The HKD1 million-whale that we saw at the Londoner [Macao] certainly helped…Even if we remove this outlier from the calculation, the average wager per whale would still have been higher by 12 percent.”
Citigroup maintain its forecast for Macau January casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) to reach MOP19.0 billion (US$2.37 billion), which would be a circa 2-percent decline year-on-year. Smoothing the performance across January and February combined, Macau’s casino GGR would be likely to register year-on-year improvement, the institution suggested.
Citigroup also gave further observations on “smart table” use in the Macau market.
It concluded that Galaxy Entertainment had become the second Macau casino operator – after MGM China Holdings Ltd – to have “fully deployed smart tables” for its mass baccarat play. That followed Galaxy Entertainment Group’s rollout of “74 new smart tables” at the grind mass area of its flagship property, Galaxy Macau, as well as “nine more” at the grind mass area in its Macau peninsula property, StarWorld Hotel.
Citigroup estimates Sands China’s equivalent operation is now “80 percent smart”, and Wynn Macau Ltd’s “circa 60 percent smart”, with Melco Resorts & Entertainment Ltd, “circa 50 percent smart”.
The bank added: “It is worth emphasising that smart tables can help increase the speed of the game (i.e. more games can be dealt per hour), and this is one of the important drivers…in our 7 percent estimated 2025 Macau GGR growth forecast.”
