Dismal Q3 for Macau Casinos, Negative 2022 Trend Continued

Casinos in Macau continued to struggle in the third quarter of 2022, revealed the quarterly gaming statistics report of the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ).

Record-Low Year on the Horizon

Macau casinos registered for the three months ended September 30, 2022, games of fortune gross revenue of just HK$5.55 billion ($707 million), sliding down 34.7% from HK$8.5 billion ($1.08 billion) in the second quarter and 68.8% from HK$17.77 billion ($2.26 billion) registered during the first three months of the year.

Year-to-date gross revenue was HK$38.82 billion ($4.94 billion), pointing to a record-low year in 2022 for the industry that was impacted by the pandemic-related restrictions and mainland China’s crackdown on cross-border gambling. In 2020, the year that was affected by the pandemic the most, gross revenue was just HK$60.44 billion ($7.7 billion)

Not a single game type remained unaffected by the slump as casinos continued to struggle to attract players to their premises and Chinese authorities tightened their grip on those who intended to travel for gambling purposes.

Roulette revenue fell to HK$17 million ($2.17 million), down 59.5% from HK$42 million ($5.35 million) in the second quarter, blackjack lost 36.8% to HK$55 million ($7 million), while VIP baccarat registered HK$1.16 billion ($148 million), down 41.7% from HK$1.99 billion ($253 million) in the second quarter.

Junkets and China Crackdown on Gambling

And while VIP baccarat was also impacted by the crackdown on junkets following the arrest of Suncity Group CEO Alvin Chau in November and Tak Chun Group’s CEO Levo Chan in January, mass baccarat at HK$3.44 billion ($438 million) was also struggling to come to terms with the previous quarter reading of HK$5.08 billion ($647 million), losing 32.3%.

Slot machines also registered less revenue in the third quarter when compared to the previous three months, HK$511 million ($65 million) in Q3 as opposed to HK$745 million ($94.9 million) in Q2. Slot revenue represented 9.2% of the total.

The only two games that seemed to have found a bottom in their negative trends were craps and Texas Hold’em poker: craps generated HK$12 million ($1.53 million) as compared to HK$11 million ($1.4 million) in Q2, while Texas Hold’em accounted for HK$1.45 million ($184,700), up 194% from HK$494,000 ($63,000) in Q2.

It should be noted that during the third operating quarter, the number of table games slightly decreased to 5,974, from 6,006 in the second quarter, while slot machines increased to 12,387, from 12,042 in the previous quarter.