Market-wide casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) in Macau reached MOP4.30 billion (US$530.0 million) in the first 10 days of September, or a daily run-rate of MOP430 million, according to estimates from JP Morgan Securities (Asia Pacific) Ltd.
“This is well below the approximately MOP550 million per day run-rates of the last couple of months, but this shouldn’t come as a surprise given significant drags from the extreme weather, namely a super typhoon in the first week of September and heavy rainstorms last week”, stated the brokerage in a Monday note.
Typhoon Saola led Macau’s weather bureau to raise its storm signal to Number 10 – the highest warning signal for tropical storms – on September 2. The bad weather led to the temporary closure of the city’s gaming venues for about nine hours as a precautionary measure, and also disrupted transportation to and from Macau.
“September is likely to be a month to forget, as we now expect GGR to pull back 15 percent to 20 percent month-on-month to MOP14.0 billion to MOP14.5 billion, or MOP465 million to MOP480 million per day, versus consensus of MOP15.8 billion (MOP525 million per day) entering the month,” wrote analysts DS Kim, Mufan Shi and Selina Li.
Macau recorded casino GGR of MOP17.21 billion in August, up 3.3 percent from July, according to an announcement from the local regulator, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau. It was the best monthly performance since January 2020, at the very beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, when GGR stood at MOP22.13 billion.
The JP Morgan team said in its Monday memo that investors were likely to “look through” the full-September GGR tally. “All eyes will be on Golden Week anyway by the time the September GGR is out,” it added.
That was a reference to a holiday period in mainland China known as the October Golden Week. In pre-pandemic times, it marked a strong trading period for Macau’s tourism and gaming industries.
In an earlier memo on September 1, the JP Morgan analysts had already curbed expectations for GGR in Macau for the current month. They stated at the time: “September GGR isn’t going to wow anyone, not only due to seasonality – a shoulder season between summer holiday and October Golden Week –, but also due to super Typhoon Saola.”
China’s State Council has designated September 29 to October 6 inclusive this year as the holiday period popularly known as October Golden Week. This year, the period encompasses the lunar-calendar based Mid-Autumn Festival, falling on September 29, and China’s National Day on October 1.
The head of Macau’s tourism office said on Sunday that the local authorities expected the city to welcome a daily average of “80,000 to 90,000” visitors during the October Golden Week.
