Macau Releases the GGR for First 17 Days of December, the City is Near Pre-Pandemic Levels

The revenue from the first eleven months in Macau exceeded expectations, but what’s going on in December? According to JP Morgan Securities (Asia Pacific) Ltd, which shared a memo on Monday that informed the public about the results and expectations, the gross gaming revenue was at a good level in December.

Huge GGR:

In the first 17 days of December, the casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) in Macau was MOP542 million a day. It is MOP22 million more than it was in the previous week, according to DS Kim, Mufan Shi, and Selina Li, the analysts from JP Morgan.

On top of that, the body expected a revenue of MOP9 billion (US$1.12 billion) in the first 17 days of December, or MOP529 million a day during that period, so the results exceeded the expectations.

The struggle to get back to the levels the city was on before the COVID-19 pandemic occurred is still ongoing. However, it seems that Macau has never been closer to achieving that. According to the most recent December release, the situation is good, and the mass GGR is “running at around 100 percent”. 

When it comes to VIP GGR levels, the authorities said that they are at “mid- or high-teens” compared to the GGR they had before the stroke of the COVID-19 pandemic. The main reason for that lies in the poor luck of the Macau operators, according to the JP Morgan team.

Great results in December and the previous quarter:

As GGRAsia reports, it is expected that the GGR in December will be about MOP17 billion, or MOP 550 million per day. The year comes to an end, and it seems people are more interested in visiting Macau and gambling than ever, so it’s expected that the revenue will further increase in the remaining days of December.

The JP Morgan team said in a memo: “This would also imply fourth-quarter GGR to grow by 8 percent quarter-on-quarter (with mass being a tad stronger, say 9 percent quarter-on-quarter), which in turn could drive 8 percent to 10 percent quarter-on-quarter growth in industry EBITDA [earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation, and amortization] versus historical seasonality of 5 percent growth quarter-on-quarter before Covid-19.”

The island had a great Q3 as well. The results showed an increase of 7.3% compared to the previous quarter, and the total GGR was MOP48.1 billion. However, it seems that the baccarat play for the mass market is the most popular gaming option in Macau since 61% of the whole GGR, or MOP 29.77 billion, has been generated from it.