Macau’s casino gaming revenue slipped back into negative growth in 2019 following the market’s largest year-on-year monthly decline in December.
Figures released on New Year’s Day by Macau’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ) show the casinos in the special administrative region of China generated gaming revenue of MOP22.84b (US$2.84b) in the month of December, a 13.7% decline from the same month last year.
The year-on-year decline is the largest recorded in 2019, in large part due to the mid-month visit to Macau by China’s President Xi Jinping, who arrived to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the handover of control over Macau from Portugal to China.
Security concerns surrounding President Xi’s arrival required temporary restrictions on Chinese residents’ travel to Macau, resulting in the casino market’s first and only double-digit monthly gaming revenue decline in 2019.
December’s decline pushed 2019’s overall gaming revenue to MOP292.5b ($36.35b), a 3.4% decline from 2018’s total, the market’s first year of negative growth after two years of positive growth, including last year’s 14% year-on-year improvement.
Macau suffered three straight years of negative growth starting in 2014, a trend that began after Beijing decided that Macau’s casino market was overheated by cash derived from corrupt public officials and private businessmen blatantly ignoring China’s capital controls.
Last year saw Macau’s casinos continue their transition from a market overly reliant on VIP gamblers to a renewed focus on the great unwashed of mass market customers. This trend seems likely to continue, spurred by junkets steering high-rollers to casinos in other Asia-Pacific markets and the recent decision by China’s central bank to boost the maximum level of cash transfers from the mainland to Macau.
