Macau’s gaming industry may be mired in a prolonged revenue slump but China’s special administrative region still boasts eight of the world’s top-ten casinos.
This week saw the Isle of Man-based Global Betting and Gaming Consultancy (GBGC) release the latest edition of its Global Gambling Report, which showed America’s casino market remained the world’s biggest in terms of gross gaming yield (GGY).
The US casino biz was worth just under $62.16b in 2014, significantly more than Macau’s $45.15b. Canada was well back of the pace in third place with $7.3b while Singapore generated $4.1b and Australia placed fifth at $3.995b.
Singapore’s performance was all the more impressive given that it has just two integrated resorts. Las Vegas Sands’ Marina Bay Sands ranked ninth on the individual casino chart with $2.57b in GGY, easily eclipsing crosstown rival Genting’s Resorts World Sentosa, which ranked 10th with $1.76b.
But Macau was the undisputed king of the individual tallies and Galaxy Entertainment Group’s Galaxy Macau was the casino di tutti casinos, generating a whopping $5.85b in GGY last year. SJM Holdings’ flagship Grand Lisboa property was a distant second at $3.82b, narrowly edging out Melco Crown Entertainment’s City of Dreams at $3.72b.
Macau’s other top performers included Wynn Resorts’ Wynn Macau ($3.59b), Sands’ Venetian Macao ($3.55b), MGM Resorts’ MGM Macau ($3.24b), Galaxy’s StarWorld ($2.87b) and Sands Cotai ($2.8b). Positions 11-14 were represented by Crown Resorts’ Crown Melbourne, Malaysia’s Genting Highlands, Sands Macau and South Korea’s Kangwon Land, the only one of the country’s 17 casinos that allows entry to local residents.
The top US casino was Wynn Las Vegas, which earned $690m, although it must be noted that, on average, Vegas casinos generate less than half of their total revenue from gaming these days.
GBGC says the overall global gambling market grew 3.2% last year to over $450b, of which Asian markets accounted for nearly one-third.
