Brokerage Jefferies Hong Kong Ltd now expects Macau casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) for full-year 2025 to reach MOP248 billion (US$31.8 billion), “which is at the high end of the market estimates range and higher than [Macau] government estimates,” it said in a memo issued on Thursday.
Such GGR growth is expected to be driven by “rich entertainment events” and “new properties” recently available in the Macau market – namely the all-suite Capella hotel at the Galaxy Macau casino resort – and the completion of renovation works at The Londoner Macao.
Other contributing factors to the expected positive performance are operators offering “more incentives to players,” coupled with “new wealth” benefiting gamblers, generated by positive performances in the real estate, stock and cryptocurrency markets, wrote analysts Anne Ling and Jingjue Pei.
They added: “We expect these drivers will continue to fuel GGR growth for the rest of the year.”
Jefferies’ upward revision to its GGR forecast followed strong performances by Macau’s casino industry in July and August.
The analysts stated: “We assume Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd and Sands China Ltd will increase market share in 2025/2026, with stable market share for MGM China Holdings Ltd and Wynn Macau Ltd, and a decline for SJM Holdings Ltd.”
Jefferies had said in July that its estimate for full-year 2025 Macau GGR stood at MOP237 billion.
The brokerage stated in its Thursday memo that it expected GGR growth of between 13.8 percent and 15.3 percent year-on-year for the third quarter of 2025.
In a separate note issued on Wednesday, brokerage CLSA also raised its 2025 and 2026 GGR forecasts – by 1.3 percent and 3.5 percent respectively – to HKD245.7 billion (US$30.6 billion) and HKD255.6 billion.
Casino GGR in August marked the best monthly performance since January 2020, just before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, at MOP22.16 billion. The August tally took the aggregate GGR so far this year to circa MOP163.05 billion, 7.2 percent higher than in the prior-year period.
In November last year, the Macau government had forecast the city’s 2025 casino GGR might reach MOP240 billion, which would represent an increase of about 5.8 percent year-on-year compared with the MOP226.78 billion achieved in 2024. In June this year, the authorities cut their 2025 forecast for Macau GGR by about 5 percent, to MOP228 billion, due to a lacklustre industry performance in the opening months of 2025.
