Casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) in Macau rose by 12.5 percent year-on-year in June, to approximately MOP22.49 billion (US$2.81 billion), according to data from the city’s regulator, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, released on Sunday.
It meant the Macau market’s GGR tally for the first half of 2018 stood at nearly MOP150.22 billion, a year-on-year expansion of 18.9 percent.
The pace of year-on-year growth in June for Macau GGR was again far from the sort of levels seen in March and April.
The rate of year-on-year growth in Macau monthly GGR had more than halved in May, to 12.1 percent, compared to April’s 27.6 percent expansion. In March the improvement had been 22.2 percent year-on-year, according to data released by the city’s casino regulator.
DS Kim and Sean Zhuang, analysts at JP Morgan Securities (Asia Pacific) Ltd, said in a memo last week regarding June market performance that revenue was “quite decent/resilient in our view, especially considering the slow seasonality post the holiday and negative impact from the World Cup”. That was a reference first to the period after May’s Golden Week holiday in China, around the time of Labour Day on May 1; and second to a reduction in Macau casino betting volume typically said to coincide with some major soccer tournaments.
