Mass-market games including slot machines provided 65.1 percent of all Macau’s casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) in the fourth quarter of 2020, according to data released on Friday by the city’s casino regulator, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau. The contribution of mass was a record quarterly high since the market-liberalisation era at the start of the current century, according to official data.
VIP baccarat, which in 2019 accounted for as much as half of all Macau GGR, accounted in the three months to December 31, for 34.9 percent of the city’s GGR. It was the first time in the same era that the VIP segment accounted for fewer than 40 percent of Macau quarterly GGR.
A number of industry observers has told GGRAsia that the VIP segment has been placed recently under commercial pressure, due to a combination of regulatory and pandemic-related factors.
Mass-market baccarat alone made up 54.3 percent of all GGR for the final quarter of 2020, or MOP11.85 billion (US$1.48 billion) in money terms.
VIP baccarat was just under MOP7.63 billion of the quarter’s total MOP21.84 billion GGR.
Slot machines accounted for MOP1.12 billion, or 5.1 percent of GGR.
The year-on-year contraction in VIP GGR was 76.4 percent, while mass-market GGR, including slots, was down a more modest 64.3 percent.
Judged quarter-on-quarter, VIP baccarat GGR was up 225.8 percent, while mass GGR – including slots – was up 458.5 percent.
There were 662 extra slot machines in the market at the end of the fourth quarter, compared to the prior three months. The tally as of December 31 was 8,906, versus 8,244 in the prior quarter. The number of live gaming tables stood at 6,080 at the end of the fourth quarter, up by 90 from the previous three months.
