Macau’s 30 casinos generated gross gaming revenue (GGR) of 18.43 billion patacas last month, a year-on-year growth of 14.9 percent, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ) has announced today.
However, GGR in November fell by 11.30 percent month on month, from 20.78 billion patacas in September.
Last month's GGR was the third lowest so far this year, after June's 17.69 billion patacas and September's 17.25 billion patacas.
In the first 10 months of the year, GGR grew by 26.8 percent to 208.58 billion patacas.
The government's GGR aim for this year is 216 billion patacas, a figure that is just eight billion patacas of the 216-billion pataca target and, therefore, certain to be easily exceeded. In December last year, GGR amounted to 18.5 billion patacas.
Macau’s government-concessioned gaming industry is run by six rival integrated resort (IR) operators – Sands, Galaxy, SJM, Melco, Wynn, and MGM. Under their concession agreements with the government, the IR operators are required to strengthen their non-gaming attractions and support Macau’s cultural heritage promotion and old quarter renovation projects. The operators pay 35 percent of their GGR as direct gaming tax to the government, aside from an additional 5.0 percent in levies for funding a range of public causes. However, the gaming law, amended in 2022, allows the government to lower the additional levies (officially termed "contributions") for a raft of reasons, such as for operators expanding their foreign client markets or when they have to cope with unforeseen adverse developments affecting their business operations.
In the first three quarters of the year, according to the latest available official gaming statistics, baccarat generated 85.0 percent of local casinos' GGR, among over a dozen games of chance. Gaming machines produced 5.6 percent of GGR between January and September this year.
