Operating expenses (opex) across the Macau gaming sector stood at just above MOP31.07 billion (US$3.95 billion) in 2023. The figure was up 236.7 percent year-on-year, coinciding with travel and other Covid-19-related restrictions being discontinued from January last year.
Of that operating expenses aggregate, the costs on complimentary goods and services provided to customers, such as hotel accommodation as well as food and drink, expanded by 365.1 percent year-on-year, to about MOP19.51 billion last year.
That is according to the Macau government’s “Gaming Sector Survey” for 2023, a compendium of data that was released on Friday by the city’s Statistics and Census Service.
Total expenditure of the gaming sector rose by 98.6 percent year-on-year to MOP80.07 billion. Aside from operating expenses, the spending category that saw the biggest increase was “purchase of goods, commissions, and customer rebates”. Such expenditure was up 386.4 percent year-on-year, to MOP18.12 billion.
The data showed that employee compensation amounted to nearly MOP20.17 billion, up 7.2 percent year-on-year. That was despite the number of full-time employees declining by 0.8 percent, to 51,771 as of the end of December 2023.
Operating expenses accounted for 39.6 percent of the sector’s overall expenditure last year, up 16.2 percentage points year-on-year, whereas the share of compensation of employees went down by 21.5 percentage points, to 25.2 percent.
Purchase of goods, commissions and customer rebates accounted for 22.6 percent of aggregate expenditure last year, showed the data.
The gaming sector’s total non-operating expenses for 2023 were nearly MOP10.07 billion, 20.4-percent higher than in 2022, mainly due to an increase of 21.4 percent in interest payments, amounting to about MOP6.60 billion.
In 2023, total receipts of the nine enterprises that were engaged in gaming activities – including non-casino firms such as those involved in lottery and sports betting – amounted to nearly MOP188.52 billion, up 308.1 percent year-on-year. Such increase was “attributable to a rebound in the number of visitor arrivals” to Macau, said the statistics bureau.
Receipts from gaming services grew by 45.1 percent year-on-year, to MOP60.32 billion, with receipts from games of chance up by 335.9 percent, to MOP183.60 billion.
In 2023, the sector’s gross value added – measuring its contribution to the overall economy – edged up by 345.8 percent year-on-year, to MO135.37 billion. Gross surplus of the sector jumped 896.5 percent, to nearly MOP115.20 billion.
