Macau casinos hit jackpot with revenue from baccarat tables

Macau's VIP baccarat revenues nearly doubled in the second quarter, rising 98.7 per cent from a year earlier to a record 32.37 billion patacas on an influx of mainland high rollers flush with easy access to cheap credit.

The soaring high-stakes baccarat play accounted for a unprecedented 72.1 per cent of all casino revenue, which in turn rose 76.7 per cent from a year earlier to a record 44.9 billion patacas, according to figures released yesterday by the Macao Gaming Inspection and Co-ordination Bureau.

Macau's high-stakes play is largely credit driven, and has received a boost from both the mainland's economic rebound and what analysts have described as a recent surge in new lending by both casino operators and VIP junket agents.

The agents are the middlemen who bring high rollers to casinos, issue them with credit and collect their gambling debts.

Given the heavy reliance on Chinese players, junkets fill a necessary function on behalf of the city's publicly listed casino operators: gambling debts are not enforceable via mainland courts and Beijing limits cross-border currency movements.

Analysts generally expect red-hot growth of Macau's VIP-fuelled casino revenue to slow later this year, as the effects of cooling mainland property and stock markets will start to weigh on high rollers' taste for gambling.