Macao’s government collected 8.53 billion patacas (US$1.06 billion) in gaming taxes in September, an increase of 11.9 percent when compared with the same month last year, data from the Financial Services Bureau shows.
The figure brought cumulative fiscal revenue from gaming up to 70.41 billion patacas (US$8.78 billion) for the first nine months of the year – a more modest year-on-year rise of 6 percent due to casinos’ lacklustre start to 2025.
The city’s six gaming concessionaires are taxed at an effective rate of 40 percent of gross gaming revenue (GGR), and gaming taxes accounted for 85.2 percent of the government’s total current revenue of 82.63 billion patacas (US$10.31 billion) for the year to 30 September.
[See more: Macao’s gaming revenue in September slips to 18.28 billion patacas]
GGR has seen marked improvements between May and August, with the latter being the month from which September’s gaming taxes were calculated.
August was Macao casinos’ best-performing month for GGR so far this year thanks to a cyclical tourism boom. September’s figure suffered a significant dip largely due to Tropical Cyclone Ragasa, dropping down to 18.28 billion patacas (US$2.27 billion) from 22.15 billion patacas (US$2.76 billion) the month prior.
While the government cut its GGR growth forecast for the year to just 0.5 percent back in June, resulting in a budget revision, some analysts are now predicting far stronger year-on-year growth of 7 percent.
