Macau’s August casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) rose 3.3 percent month-on-month, to MOP17.21 billion (US$2.13 billion), according to a Friday announcement from the local regulator, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau.
The figure compared with a July GGR result of MOP16.66 billion, which had been the best monthly performance since January 2020, at the very beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, when GGR stood at MOP22.13 billion.
The August tally was up 686.4 percent from August 2022, a period when Covid-related travel restrictions were still in place.
The latest data took Macau’s GGR for the eight months to August 31 to about MOP114.01 billion, a rise of 295.1 percent from the comparable 2022 period.
Macau had on average “over 100,000” visitor arrivals daily in the first half of August, exceeding government expectations, said Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, director of the Macao Government Tourism Office, in remarks to local media in late August.
July saw nearly 2.76 million visitor arrivals to Macau, a daily average of 89,000, according to the city’s Statistics and Census Service.
Brokerage JP Morgan Securities (Asia Pacific) Ltd had noted in a mid-August memo the “ramp” in visitor volume to the city.
Analysts DS Kim, Mufan Shi and Selina Li added at the time that the existing data suggested August mass-market GGR was already at a daily run rate of “90 to 95 percent of the pre-Covid level month-to-date”.
They said: “We expect mass GGR to finally hit 100 percent recovery [during October Golden Week].”
China’s State Council has designated September 29 to October 6 inclusive as the holiday period known as October Golden Week. The period encompasses the lunar-calendar based Mid-Autumn Festival, falling on September 29 this year, and China’s National Day on October 1. Traditionally those holiday seasons are times of peak demand for Macau’s casinos and general tourism facilities.
