Macau recorded casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) of MOP15.57 billion (US$1.93 billion) in May, up 5.7 percent from MOP14.72 billion in April. GGR rose sequentially for the third consecutive month.
The latest monthly tally was up 365.9 percent from May 2022, according to data released on Thursday by the local regulator, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau.
The May result was the best monthly performance since January 2020 – prior to the onset of the pandemic alert – when GGR stood at MOP22.13 billion. The first three days of May were part of a five-day break on the Chinese mainland that began on April 29 and encompassed Labour Day on May 1.
Macau’s casino GGR stood at MOP64.93 billion in the five months to May 31, an increase of 172.9 percent from a year earlier.
For full-year 2022, Macau’s casino GGR stood at MOP42.20 billion, down 51.4 percent from the previous year.
Despite what has been considered a “strong print” in terms of monthly GGR, Macau casino stocks in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange have seen some volatility in valuations in recent weeks.
The Macau names in likelihood “have been punished too much because of China sentiment,” suggested on Wednesday Angela Hanlee, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
“You can see the Macau numbers… gaming revenue numbers have been beating [forecasts] every month,” she said in a reply to a question from GGRAsia during a conference session at the Global Gaming Expo (G2E) Asia 2023 Special Edition: Singapore.
But in terms of Macau operator share prices, investors are “not rewarding the beat, at all,” she added. “It’s not really fundamentals driven.”
