Macau’s 30 casinos generated gross gaming revenue (GGR) of 18.2 billion patacas last month, a year-on-year decline of 2.0 percent, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ) has announced today.
Month on month, GGR in December was down by 1.27 percent, last year’s only month to suffer a year-on-year decline.
Last year’s GGR rose by 23.9 percent year on year to 226.78 billion patacas (US$28.39 billion), reaching 77.5 percent of the GGR recorded in pre-pandemic 2019, exceeding the government's forecast by 4.95 percent. Macau recorded its first COVID-19 case in January 2020. The pandemic severely affected Macau’s economy in general, its gaming sector in particular between early 2020 and late 2021.
Macau’s casinos recorded their highest annual GGR of 360.7 billion patacas in 2013. Last year’s GGR reached 62.87 percent of the one in 2013.
The government's 2024 budget had predicted GGR of 216 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. So far, this has not been the case.
In the first three quarters of last 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 last year.
