Macao records improve total gaming revenue
Total gaming revenue rose 812.5% year-over-year in June, slightly above $817.1 million, despite the recent implementation of a new range of travel restrictions to stem the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
Official data from the Gaming Inspection Coordinating Agency regulator shows that the tally of Portuguese residences in the past six months now stands at about $6.1 billion, an increase of 45.4% year-on-year. Sources detailed that the June totals come after 2020 when casinos in Macau were hit by the coronavirus, with total revenue from games for 12 months only about $7.5 billion.
Macau is home to about 40 casinos, including SJM Holdings Limited’ iconic casino Grand Lisboa venue and Melco Resorts & Entertainment Limited’s $3.2 billion Studio City Macau development. The city government reportedly responded to the coronavirus outbreak in neighboring China last month by launching a series of new safety devices requiring arrivals from five mainland cities to quarantine for at least two weeks.
It explained that these new precautions also mandate arriving tourists to provide negative tests for the coronavirus obtained within the previous 48 hours. Vitali Umanski, Kelsey State and Louis Lee have reportedly claimed the precautions are a major factor in June’s final total game sales figures, down about 37.4% from about $1.3 billion recorded last month.
June’s results were ‘in line with expectations’, with the quintile in Guangdong communities, including the metropolitan cities Foshan and Guangzhou, now reporting ‘zero local cases since June 22’. Nevertheless, they reportedly acknowledged that the total gaming revenue figure would have been better had Macau not placed new obstacles between the obstacles coming from the largest single supply market for tourists.
It also predicted that in addition to restrictions related to travel to and from Hong Kong, these restrictions could be eased soon. Players from former British colonies reportedly accounted for about 10% of the pre-pandemic casino business in Macau, and could soon return to collective, citing the establishment of the “Macao-Hong Kong travel bubble” proposal from the middle of this month, the three said