Macau’s January casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) grew 232.6 percent month-on-month, coinciding with the ending of mainland China and Macau’s respective ‘zero-Covid’ policies at the start of the month that saw a boom in tourism numbers, and the mainland’s seven-day holiday for Chinese New Year (CNY), from January 21 to 27.
January GGR was MOP11.58 billion (US$1.43 billion), according to the city’s regulator, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau. December 2022’s GGR had been MOP3.48 billion.
The January result was the best monthly performance since January 2020 – prior to the onset of the pandemic alert – and up 82.5 percent judged year-on-year, relative to January 2022’s MOP6.34 billion.
Macau had just over 451,000 visitor arrivals in the seven days that mainland China counted as the Chinese New Year holiday for 2023, which was about 37 percent of the tally in the comparable pre-pandemic trading period of Chinese New Year 2019.
In 2022, all but the first day of mainland China’s lunar new year holiday had been in February, meaning it is not possible to judge the effect of the annual festivities on Macau GGR in year-on-year terms. The 2022 holidays had run from January 31 to February 6.
