According to a report from Morgan Stanley, Macau’s gross gaming revenue is expected to reach MOP 11.2 billion ($1.39 billion) in February. The brokerage said the hub’s gaming demand remains strong post-Chinese New Year, with casino traffic and minimum bets staying high, despite the city typically becoming quiet after the holidays.
Morgan Stanley analysts Praveen K Choudhary and Gareth Leung note China’s air capacity to Macau recovered to 70% of pre-Covid levels in February, an encouraging sign in the premium mass market as most higher-end customers travel by air.
Furthermore, the average hotel occupancy rates and daily room rates also remain robust after the Chinese New Year Holiday holiday. Rates appear to be stronger than pre-pandemic levels, with 9 out of 25 surveyed hotels reporting being fully booked from February 18-24, based on a survey conducted by the brokerage.
Current average daily room rates are doing even better than the May Golden Week 2021, the best holiday since Covid, and most of the hotels registered much stronger room rates compared with the figure reported in 2019, as reported by Macau Business.
The gross gaming revenue for the first week of February was tracking at MOP 376 million per day ($46.5 million), a 36% increase year-over-year, and 31% higher than January’s daily gross gaming revenue.
As Chinese package tours resumed on February 6, Morgan Stanley analysts expect February’s gross gaming revenue at MOP11.2 billion, representing 44% of the figure recorded in the same period in 2019.
The brokerage said that if February’s gross gaming revenue turned out strong, the market could revise its 2024 estimates upwardly.
In January, Macau’s gross gaming revenue climbed 82.5% from a year earlier to 11.6 billion patacas ($1.4 billion). The figures beat the median estimate of a 36.5% increase, according to analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
Last month marked the first rise since February last year and the highest monthly revenue since January 2020. The recovery followed 10 consecutive months of double-digit declines as Covid Zero policies and a crackdown on cross-border gambling kept casinos mostly empty for much of 2022.
Original article: https://www.yogonet.com/international/news/2023/02/15/66103-macau-ggr-expected-to-reach-14b-in-february-casino-traffic-and-bets-remain-high-postnew-year-holiday
