VIP baccarat’s share of Macau casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) fell year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter in the final three months of 2018.
That is according to data from the city’s casino regulator, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, issued on Wednesday.
VIP GGR for the fourth quarter was MOP42.01 billion (US$5.2 billion), or 53.3 percent of all Macau casino GGR for the period, compared to 56.2 percent in the equivalent quarter a year earlier, and 54.3 percent in the third quarter of 2018.
In percentage growth terms, high-roller baccarat GGR was up 3.4 percent year-on-year in the final quartile of 2018, while mass-market baccarat was up 19 percent year-on-year in the three months to December 31.
Mass-market baccarat, the second most popular Macau casino game segment by revenue, saw its market share increase by 3 percentage points, to 35.4 percent or MOP27.90 billion. That compared to 32.4 percent of fourth-quarter GGR a year earlier, and nearly 34.4 percent of third-quarter 2018 GGR.
Slot machine GGR for the final three months of 2018 was MOP3.91 billion, or nearly 5 percent of quarterly GGR, compared to 5.01 percent a year earlier. Slots’ fourth-quarter share of GGR was however up slightly judged sequentially, from the nearly 4.8 percent recorded in third-quarter 2018.
Judged in percentage growth terms, slot machine fourth-quarter GGR was up 7.9 percent year-on-year, but down sequentially from the 9 percent growth rate recorded in the third quarter last year.
Market share for other casino games in the fourth quarter was 6.3 percent, broadly at par with a year earlier. But annual growth for that quartile was down to only 6.7 percent compared to 15.2 percent year-on-year in the third quarter, and 9.5 percent in fourth-quarter 2017.
In the live multi game category – a form of electronic table game product offering a live dealer but electronic betting and bet settlement – the fourth-quarter GGR was MOP710 million, down sequentially from MOP733 million in the third quarter. But the final quartile tally was up 13.8 percent from the MOP624 million achieved in fourth-quarter 2017.
Judged year-on-year, total 2018 GGR for live multi game rose 12.2 percent to nearly MOP2.73 billion, from MOP2.43 billion in full-year 2017.
It had already been announced on January 1 that Macau’s accumulated casino GGR for full-year 2018 grew by 14.0 percent year-on-year, to nearly MOP302.85 billion. That tally had been aided by a strong end to 2018 and the best quartile performance of the year in the fourth quarter, at MOP78.79 billion in overall GGR.
