Boosting Macau mass-market gambling is undoubtedly the key to maintaining growth momentum for the city’s entire casino market, but it is unlikely to push it to the level of the industry’s pre-pandemic performance. That is according to Hoffman Ma Ho Man, deputy chairman of satellite-casino backer Success Universe Group Ltd.
He made the comments during a Thursday lunch for the Hong Kong press.
Mr Ma said it was “unrealistic” to expect Macau’s casino GGR to return to pre- Covid-19 performance, i.e., the levels seen in 2019, as the city now had only circa “20 percent” of its gross gaming revenue (GGR) coming from the VIP segment.
Driving foot traffic to boost mass market play is now the key for the Macau gaming sector to keep its gaming revenue growth momentum, the Success Universe senior executive remarked to the Hong Kong press.
He expected Macau’s city-wide 2025 casino GGR could track year-on-year growth of “a few percentage points”. For the first two months of this year combined – a period that included the lunar new year holiday season – he anticipated GGR might be either “flat” or have “low single-digit” growth, judged year-on-year.
Hong Kong-listed Success Universe is an investor in Macau casino resort Ponte 16, located at the city’s Inner Harbour district on the Macau peninsula. Macau casino concessionaire SJM Holdings Ltd supplies the gaming licence for Ponte 16.
Mr Ma’s company is currently pursuing expansion of non-gaming facilities at Ponte 16, and the Macau government publicly announced in November approval for the step, via a renewed and amended public land concession for the complex.
In his Thursday comments to the press, Mr Ma reiterated that the expansion project – currently undergoing some changes in the plan – would take two years to complete, with the investment involved keeping to an estimated pricing of “HKD500 million [US$64.22 million] to HKD600 million”.
For full-year 2024, Macau’s market-wide VIP baccarat revenue stood at MOP54.76 billion (US$6.83 billion), accounting for 24.1 percent of aggregate GGR for the 12-month period. Such revenue rose by 21.2 percent year-on-year, but represented only circa 40.5 percent of VIP revenue generated in 2019.
Mass-market baccarat generated GGR of just below MOP137.91 billion last year, representing 60.8 percent of total revenue in 2024. It was up 24.8 percent from the previous year, and represented circa 114.2 percent of full-year 2019 mass-market baccarat GGR.
