Macau gaming operator Wynn Macau Ltd says it has applied for and been granted the 25 new-to-market live-dealer gaming tables to which it was entitled as of January 1 under the Macau government’s table cap.
It said so in an email on Wednesday to GGRAsia. The firm did not clarify when the application had been made, or when the tables had been granted.
The local casino regulator, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau – also known by its Portuguese acronym DICJ – had told GGRAsia in an email on January 9 that as of that date, Wynn Macau had not applied for the tables.
The same email said Wynn Macau’s market rival, Sands China Ltd, had applied for and been granted the 25 tables to which it was also entitled on January 1.
For both firms, the table entitlement was linked to the opening of new resorts: the US$4.4-billion Wynn Palace (pictured) on August 22; and Sands China’s US$2.7-billion the Parisian Macao on September 13.
The two operators are respectively entitled to a further 25 new-to-market tables on January 1, 2018, according to previous announcements by the Macau government.
The Macau table cap, effective since 2013, is designed to limit compound annual growth in the number of new live gaming tables in the city’s casino market to 3 percent over a 10-year period, until December 2022.
Data from the gaming bureau released on Monday, show that between the end of the third quarter 2016 and the end of the fourth quarter 2016, the total number of live dealer gaming tables in the Macau market actually fell slightly – to 6,287, compared to the 6,304 recorded as of September 30.
