Casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) in Macau was at near standstill year-on-year in February – a month that included the typically strong trading period of the Chinese New Year holiday.
February’s casino GGR was 0.1 percent down from the same month a year earlier, at approximately MOP19.52 billion (US$2.44 billion).
The figures were given on Tuesday by the city’s casino regulator, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, also known by its Portuguese acronym DICJ.
“The consensus range for February was wide, from around 2 percent [gain] to a decline of 10 percent-plus, so we would consider a flat performance to be a beat,” said a note from analyst Grant Govertsen of brokerage Union Gaming Securities Asia Ltd.
The result brings the accumulated casino GGR for the first two months of the calendar year to nearly MOP38.20 billion, a decline of 11.8 percent judged year-on-year.
In February 2015 – which also included the Chinese New Year holiday – Macau’s GGR fell 48.6 percent year-on-year.
The February 2015 GGR numbers were against the background of a difficult comparison, because in February 2014, GGR had actually grown by 40.3 percent year-on-year.
Brokerage Daiwa Securities Group Inc said in a note on February 23 that it expected Macau’s casino industry would experience in 2016 “a year of stabilisation, with stocks range-trading and dividends being the key bright spot”.
