GGRAsia – Macau VIP market falls 42 pct in 2Q: govt

Macau VIP market falls 42 pct in 2Q: govt

Jul 17, 2015 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck

Macau’s VIP baccarat gross gaming revenue (GGR) fell 42.2 percent in the second quarter, to MOP31.57 billion (US$3.95 billion) from MOP54.64 billion in the year earlier period according to official data released on Friday. VIP baccarat GGR in the first quarter fell by 42.1 percent year-on-year.

Mass-market GGR in Macau, including slots and electronic table games, fell by 30.2 percent year-on-year in the second quarter, to approximately MOP25.30 billion from MOP36.24 billion in the year-prior period, said the city’s gambling regulator, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau. In the first quarter, the rate of year-on-year contraction in the mass market had been 27.0 percent.

It had been announced on July 1 that total Macau casino GGR for the first six months of 2015 stood 37.0 percent lower than in the same period in 2014, at about MOP121.65 billion. Quarter-on-quarter, casino revenue contracted 12.2 percent between the first and second quarter, according to official data.

The official split between VIP and mass play is only released every quarter, typically several weeks after the end of the reporting quarter. VIP revenue accounted for 55.5 percent of casino GGR in the three months to June 30, down from 58.2 percent in the previous quarter and from 60.1 percent in the prior-year period.

Revenue from slot machines in the second quarter of this year fell 18.2 percent to MOP2.96 billion, from MOP3.62 billion in the second quarter of 2014.

‘Live multi game’ products – those featuring table-style games with live dealers but electronic betting and electronic bet settlement – declined by 11.6 percent year-on-year in the second quarter of 2015. Revenue from such products fell to MOP504 million in the period, compared to MOP570 million in the year-prior period.

Richard Huang and Stella Xing, analysts at Japanese brokerage Nomura, said in a note on Wednesday they expected – based on unofficial industry returns for Macau’s tables-only GGR between July 6 and 13 – that tables-only GGR market wide would decline 34 percent year-on-year in July.

Daiwa Securities Group Inc said in a note the same day that it also expected a 34 percent year-on-year decline in Macau GGR in July, which it estimated would aggregate HKD18 billion (US$2.3 billion).

Daiwa’s analysts Jamie Soo and Adrian Chan also gave a commentary on the Macau government’s easing of rules – with effect from July 1 – on the length of stay conditions for transit visas used by some mainland Chinese visitors to Macau.

“This week marks the second consecutive week of visa loosening… and we have not observed any sequential [GGR] recovery from this, as expected given the impaired liquidity channels in Macau,” stated the Daiwa team.