The Macau Horse Racing Company has announced that its revenue losses has ballooned by 72.3 percent in 2015.
According to a notice published in the Official Gazette, the company—which runs the Macau Jockey Club—said it lost more than MOP88 million (USD11.1 million) last year, a huge spike compared to the MOP51.2 million deficit the company reported in 2014.
The last time the Macau Jockey Club made profit was in 2005, Macau Business Daily reported, and the horse racing company’s losses are inching closer to MOP4 billion.
Gross gaming revenue from horse race betting in Macau dropped by 45.6 percent year-on-year, reaching MOP166 million last year, data from the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau showed.
Macau Horse Racing Company didn’t give a reason behind the negative results, but SJM executive director Angela Leong On Kei has said they are already looking at new strategies “to improve business for the next horse racing season.”
Leong, who serves as the vice chairperson of Macau Horse Racing Company, said in June that the continuous declines in horse racing revenues have been caused by “the overall economic environment” of Macau following China’s crackdown on corruption.
“We have given certain pressure to the club’s chief executive, [Thomas Li Chu Kwan], telling him to be more innovative as a chief executive, such as to think about how we can introduce more diversified offers to improve the revenues,” the executive said, according to local broadcaster TDM. “We hope to bring out more activities as well. But currently, we haven’t come up with a certain proposal.”
In 2015, a group accused the Macau Jockey club bosses of mismanagement, and that the cuts in the budget have created a real problem, noting that the club’s stables were “very badly managed, everything is dirty, and the retired animals have nowhere to go.”
Macau Horse Racing Company has held the monopoly for the horse racing and betting business in the city state since 1978, and has more than a year left before its horse race betting concession expires in August 2017.
