GGRAsia – MGM China several years lead on Macau smart tables: COO

MGM China several years lead on Macau smart tables: COO

May 02, 2024 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck

Macau casino operator MGM China Holdings Ltd still has “at least several years of lead” in the implementation and use of “smart tables” versus its five market rivals, claimed a senior executive on Wednesday.

Hubert Wang, president and chief operating officer (COO) of MGM China, was speaking on the first-quarter earnings call of the firm’s majority owner, MGM Resorts International.

The COO stated that although “everybody is trying to implement” the use of such tables, “I think that we have at least several years of lead in the implementation and also [being able to] take advantage of this technology to execute various programmes”.

MGM China runs the MGM Macau property on the city’s peninsula, and MGM Cotai (pictured) in the newer Cotai casino district.

As well as the fact such tables enabled gaming chip tracking and authentication, making it “very difficult to cheat a game… almost impossible,” such tables also made it possible for casino operators to have “a lot more data” on customers.

That, said Mr Wang, “allows us to do precision marketing based on various customers’ playing level, [and] we can also give them real-time rewards”.

Such table technology, stated the MGM China COO, “allows us to develop new games as well”.

He said: “For instance, we already launched insurance [bet] baccarat in this market and this is impossible to do manually.”

That was understood to be a reference to a complicated pay table system associated with so-called baccarat ‘insurance’ bets, a hedging wager favoured by some players.

Mr Wang added that such technology was also “very favourably viewed by the regulators in this environment”. That was understood to be a reference to Macau’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, which has recently had talks with the Macau operators on the utility of ‘smart’ technology in the local market.

Kenneth Feng, president and an executive director at MGM China, also mentioned on the first-quarter call that the Macau operation “had this technology already in 2016”.

He added that in his view, “what differentiates us in the market is… we possess a deep understanding of our customers, particularly the premium mass, from their culture, their habit, behaviour, background profile, even their home province, and the dialects”.

The latter was a reference to mainland China customers, the key source market for the Macau casino industry.

Bill Hornbuckle, chief executive and president of MGM Resorts, stated on the call that Macau “for us in particular… is simply booming”.

He added: “We continue to maintain… an outsized portion of [gross gaming revenue] share, we’re at 17 percent for the quarter,” as well as record EBITDAR [earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation, amortisation and rent].”

The group CEO also noted: “We paid our first dividend since 2019. We heard this week about visa reforms… so, I think that accretes all to visitation and obviously in all of our favours.”

The latter was a reference to a Sunday announcement by China’s National Immigration Administration, about eased exit-visa protocols for travel to Macau and Hong Kong, from mainland China.

Mr Hornbuckle said MGM China’s first-quarter EBITDA margin had been 29 percent, “despite the hyperbole about all of the promotional activity, particularly aimed at us… I just query that and I challenge that”. The group CEO didn’t specify the source of such commentary.

But he added: “Frankly, if we had retail to the extent of someone like two of our competitors [in the Macau market], we’d be in the low-to-mid-30 percent.”