VIP gambling in Macau has shown signs of recovery but the rise in the gambling town’s third quarter revenues for 2013 is largely attributed to the continued emergence of the mass market.
According to data from Macau’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, mass-market baccarat was the huge winner in the city’s Q3 casino revenue figures, accounting for MOP23.8 billion of the total pie. The figure may not much given it is, after all, Macau, but the figure represents a staggering 41.8-percent growth compared to its numbers a year ago. Wrap your heads around that for a second.
41.8 percent.
The revenue from mass-market baccarat also accounted for 26.7 percent of Macau’s total third quarter casino gross revenue of MOP89.2 billion. Even more impressive is that the total is 2.7 percentage points better than what the city’s casinos did in Q2 of this year while also amounting to the largest quarter revenue earnings since the fourth quarter of 2005.
For all the love mass-market baccarat is receiving, and deservedly so, we might add, it’s also important to give some serious dap to the VIP market, which saw its own baccarat revenues rise by 13 percent, hitting MOP57.8 billion in the third quarter, 11.2 percent higher than its Q2 numbers, and accounting for 64.7 percent of Macau’s total casino gross revenue for the time period. That’s as clear an indication that the high-rollers are coming back to Macau after seeing a noticeable decline in the early part of the year.
Meanwhile, revenue from slot machines in Macau has always paled in comparison to what baccarat takes in, but it’s also worth mentioning that the segment earned MOP3.6 billion in the quarter, 12.9 percent better than it’s numbers in the same time a year ago and making up four percent of casino gross gaming revenue.
