January downer for Macau

The almost 40 casinos in Macau are reportedly continuing to be negatively impacted by the coronavirus pandemic as they saw aggregated gross gaming revenues for January decrease by some 63.7% year-on-year to slightly beyond $1 billion.

According to a report from Inside Asian Gaming citing official figures from the enclave’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau regulator, the result represents the 16th consecutive month of year-on-year declines from the Asian casino hotspot and followed a December in which the finishing figure was some 65.8% lower at approximately $979 million.

Community confidence:

However, the source reported that Macau casino operators have cause to be optimistic as January’s finishing tally represented an improvement of 2.6% month-on-month and came even as mainland Chinese officials were warning against unnecessary travel following the reappearance of the highly-contagious ailment in rural Hebei Province. There is purportedly also relief to be had in the fact that the final figure exceeded earlier projections that were to have seen it drop by as much as 67% year-on-year to top out at about $914 million.

Sustained slump:

Macau is home to some of the world’s most prestigious casino resorts including the 3,000-room The Venetian Macao venue from the Sands China Limited subsidiary of Las Vegas Sands Corporation as well as Melco Resorts and Entertainment Limited’s newer City of Dreams Macau property. The former Portuguese enclave reportedly finished last year with aggregated gross gaming revenues of almost $7.6 billion, which was nevertheless around 79% lower than the $36.6 billion recorded for 2019 largely due to the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent imposition of associated travel restrictions and social distancing protocols.