Macau’s casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) for the first 14 days of July was estimated at MOP8.3 billion (US$1.03 billion), or MOP593 million a day, according to a Monday memo from JP Morgan Securities (Asia Pacific) Ltd, citing its own industry checks.
“This implies the last week’s run-rate improved 15 percent week-on-week to MOP635 million a day, versus only MOP550 million a day” in the first week of July, “as summer holiday demand started to come in gradually,” wrote JP Morgan’s analysts DS Kim, Mufan Shi and Selina Li.
They added: “Also note that Euro 2024 has just finished this morning Hong Kong time, and we’d expect volumes to gradually improve in the next several weeks into summer holiday peaks.”
According to investment analysts, Macau’s casino GGR has historically been negatively impacted by large international soccer tournaments, such as the UEFA Euro in Europe, as some punters temporarily shift their attention from casino betting to sports betting.
By segment for month-to-date, JP Morgan estimated mass-market GGR “at 105 percent to 110 percent of the pre-Covid level, while VIP is around low to mid 20s-percent”.
“This is a bit softer than second quarter’s trends but this is a weekly trend that can be very volatile either way, and we wouldn’t read too much into the print just yet,” added the JP Morgan team.
“We expect July GGR to be around MOP18.5 billion, which is modestly below the initial market expectations of MOP19 billion-plus, due to slower start of the month,” stated the analysts.
In a separate note on Macau’s casino performance for the first two weeks of July, Citigroup said it was “conservatively” keeping its full-July GGR forecast unchanged at MOP19.0 billion, about 78 percent of the pre-pandemic July 2019 level.
“First half of July is still within Macau’s usual seasonal trough period, so for Macau to attain a daily GGR run-rate of almost MOP600 million so far this month is pretty solid,” wrote the financial institution.
