Macau Shareholders Smiling

It seems like Macau’s gambling revenue is going from strength to strength and revenue for 2010 is set to increase by more than 50% the top gaming regulator told the Macau Daily Times yesterday. So far this year’s revenue represents an increase of more than 20% in its previous forecast.

Having scrutinised the figures from January to September, “we can now honestly say that revenue at Macau’s casino has increased and will increase by more than 50% on a yearly basis, the director of the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ) Manuel Joaquim das Neves said.

The month of September saw Macau’s gross gaming revenue reach MOP 15.3 billion (USD 1.9 billion).  Therefore indicating an annual increase of 39.8 percent based on information released by the gaming regulator.    To date the last nine month’s gaming revenue has escalated to a whopping 60 percent year- on- year to MOP 133.24 billion.

This revenue alone is more than what most land-based casinos in the US made for the entire 2009 financial year (MOP 119.4 billion). September 2009 the gross gaming revenues for casinos had reached MOP 83.2 billion.

The staggering increase during the last nine months of the year is still on the increase and so far the month of October has not disappointed, revenue is on the up all the time according to,” DICJ director. “Daily financial records have been scrutinised for the last 2 day (during the Golden Week)”.  October the 3^rd saw a new gross revenue gaming record and the following day it was smashed again,” Neves told MDT in an interview.  To be honest it is still early days yet to predict the outcome of the revenues for the month of October, so far financial revenues have been extremely, however, Golden Week is still ahead and revenues tend to drop during this week.

In a previous interview with Neves he predicted that annual gambling revenues at Macau would increase from 10 to 15 percent.  He now shifted that figure to 30 percent per annum based on the last couple of months phenomenal gambling turn over.  Macau’s Casino gambling revenue has increased exponentially to 94.1 percent in May to a record MOP 17 billion (USD 2.1 billion). On the back-off a 70 percent year-on-year jump in April, revenues have escalated to a previous all time record of MOP 14.1 billion.

Most market experts are in unison and have predicted that the overall gambling revenues for 2010 would be a phenomenal 50 percent, despite the current global recession in most developed markets.   Shortly after the September results have been released, analyst David Katz, employed by Jefferies, notified his investors that the indications “are in line with our forecasts and that revenue in Macau will continue to rise irrespective of current market challenges”.

Analyst Janet Brashear at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., mentioned that Macau growth is “presently Macau’s growth rate is indicative of what is yet to come, even as the rate depreciates.”