Taxes collected from Macau’s gambling sector jumped 17.5 percent in the first nine months of the year, latest data provided by the city’s Financial Services Bureau show.
Macau’s fiscal revenue from direct taxes on gaming surged to MOP68.64 billion (US$8.54 billion) in the January to September 2017 period compared to MOP58.4 billion ($7.27 billion) in the same period last year.
The former Portuguese enclave’s casino gross gaming revenue was also robust in the nine months to September 2017, growing 18.8 percent to MOP193.38 billion ($24.06 billion).
The Macau government’s total revenue in the first three quarters was MOP84.89 billion ($10.56 billion), with the gaming sector contributing 80.9 percent of this sum.
Macau casinos are levied with a 39 percent effective tax rate on their gross gaming revenues – 35 percent of which goes to the government purse while the remaining four percent goes to an array of community causes.
The Macau government’s fiscal surplus expanded by 61.9 percent year-on-year to MOP34.95 billion during the January-September period.
Macau had earlier targeted a conservative MOP71.86 billion ($8.94 billion) in direct taxes from gaming for this year. With only three months to go, the Macau government has expressed confidence that they are likely to hit their target for this year.
Macau visitor arrivals grew 2.4% in September
Meanwhile, Macau’s government also announced that tourist arrivals to Asia’s premier gambling hub in September grew 2.4 percent year-on-year to nearly 2.49 million.
Judging the figures month-to-month, the city’s Statistics and Census Service noted a 13.3 percent decline in visitor arrivals from August.
Residents of mainland China remain the top visitors in Macau as the number of arrivals grew 9.2 percent to 1,721,858 year-on-year in September. Mainland visitors came mainly from Guangdong Province (642,184), Hunan Province (85,110) and Fujian Province (72,723).
Visitors from the Republic of Korea (60,940) recorded a 10.6 percent growth, but the number of tourists from Hong Kong (451,307) and Taiwan (86,183) slumped by 14.3% and 5.8% respectively.
Long-haul visitors from the United States (12,269), Australia (7,186), Canada (5,044) and the United Kingdom (4,077) also declined last month.
In the first three quarters of 2017, visitor arrivals are up 4.2 percent to 23,835,039.
