Capital markets group CLSA has upped its forecast for Macao’s 2024 gross gaming revenue (GGR) by 3.5 percent after a run of unexpectedly high tourism numbers, Inside Asia Gaming reports.
The Hong Kong-headquartered brokerage firm now says this year’s GGR will come in at US$30.3 billion – a year-on-year jump of 34 percent. That’s almost double the government’s 18 percent growth prediction and slightly more than Morgan Stanley’s, which at 28 percent was at the higher end of the spectrum.
CLSA analysts noted that demand for mass gaming in the SAR’s casinos was thriving despite China’s economic headwinds. They attributed that resilience to “Macao’s niche positioning, targeting less than 2 percent of China’s population.”
[See more: China tells its citizens to refrain from gambling in foreign countries]
However, CLSA also lowered its industry-wide forecast for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) by between 1 and 3 percent, citing the competitive market and disruptions at Sands China’s Londoner Macao during phase two of a major revamp.
Regarding the Londoner, the analysts said they expected “meaningful disruptions of incumbent operations” to happen between the second and fourth quarters of this year. These would likely result in Sands China temporarily losing some of its majority market share to other gaming concessionaires, they added.
The multinational bank Citigroup, meanwhile, has predicted that an increase of so-called smart gaming tables, using chips fitted with radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, could boost Macao’s GGR through speeding up games of the highly popular baccarat, GGR Asia reports.
[See more: RFID tables could give Macao authorities vast amounts of data]
“Every five seconds saved per game of baccarat could translate into a 5.9 percent organic growth in GGR,” Citigroup analysts have suggested.
MGM and Sands have been using the technology for years, Galaxy, and Melco and SJM have recently confirmed they will begin rolling out smart tables this year. According to a report by Goldman Sachs, RFID technology will eventually become the standard at Macao’s casinos.
RFID tables allow casinos to combat fraud, manage inventory and keep tabs on players – along with improving overall efficiency on the gaming floor.
