New | Macau’s October gaming revenue sinks; hit by Hong Kong protests, smoking ban and mainland graft drive
The decline continues a five-month negative streak and was in line with analyst consensus forecast of a drop around 22 per cent
Macau’s gross gaming revenue in October plunged 23.2 per cent from a year ago to 28,025 million patacas, the largest decline on record since the government started collecting data in 2005, weakened by political protests in Hong Kong, a new smoking ban, and a tightening anti-graft campaign.
The decline, which continues a five-month negative streak, was in line with analyst consensus forecast of a drop around 22 per cent. On Monday, Macau’s Secretary for Economy and Finance Francis Tam Pak-yuen had already forewarned that the decline would be above 20 per cent.
“Although it has already dropped for the fifth consecutive month, we still predict the slowdown of gaming revenue growth will continue for a period of time,” he said.
Expectations are low for the fourth quarter, especially for the VIP segment given the central government’s announcement of a newly created anti-corruption office. President Xi Jinping will also be visiting the former Portuguese colony in December to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Macau handover.
“Prior to the announcement of this new anti-corruption office our gut feeling was that VIP customers who felt like they were potentially at risk of the current anti-corruption drive had likely already self-excluded themselves from the market, meaning that we wouldn’t necessarily see VIP trends becoming materially worse from current levels (barring further shocks to the system like those caused by the ongoing protests in Hong Kong) and that modest growth could return once easy year on year comps start appearing in the springtime,” a note released yesterday from China Union Gaming said.
“However, the creation of a new high-level office on anti-corruption indicates to us that the broader anti-corruption drive is far from over and that the greater number of human resources allocated to this department indicates that the number of cases that are prosecuted could continue to grow.”
It noted that the number of bribery cases being prosecuted has increased by 31 per cent year on year to 6,500 prosecutions year to date.
