Macau casinos revenue jumps 82.5% in January after visitor surge

HONG KONG — Macau posted an 82.5% year-on-year rise in playing revenue to 11.6 billion patacas ($1.4 billion) in January, after the world’s largest playing hub had practically half 1,000,000 visitor arrivals over the week-long Lunar New Yr vacation.

The crowds had been the most important in greater than three years, however January’s revenue was nonetheless lower than half of the Lunar New Yr interval in 2019 previous to the COVID-19 outbreak, in response to knowledge launched by Macau’s authorities on Wednesday.

A particular administrative area of China, Macau has seen a resurgence of vacationers from the mainland since Jan. 8 after the territory dropped all COVID-19 testing necessities for inbound vacationers from the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Tens of hundreds of vacationers streamed every day into Macau’s casinos and picturesque cobbled streets over the Lunar New Yr vacation from Jan. 21, a stark distinction to the dearth of tourists into the previous Portuguese colony since 2020.

Macau is the one place in the nation the place playing in casinos is authorized. It had carefully adopted China’s zero-COVID technique since 2019 and re-opened alongside the mainland.

January’s revenues had been the primary for Sands China, Wynn Macau, MGM China, Galaxy Leisure, MGM China and SJM Holdings beneath new 10-year contracts.

The casinos had launched beneath 20-year contracts in 2002, raking in billions of {dollars} and turning a sleepy fishing village right into a glitzy boomtown.

The brand new contracts, with extra authorities oversight and management, had been struck after COVID-19 restrictions decimated Macau’s playing revenues and despatched internet debt hovering. The business had its worst revenue efficiency on report in 2022.

The town’s as soon as profitable VIP business has additionally collapsed following a number of arrests in Macau’s junket business. A Macau courtroom on Jan. 18 sentenced Alvin Chau, one of many metropolis’s most well-known figures, to 18 years in jail. — Reuters

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