Local gaming industry expert Ben Lee predicts Macao’s concessionaires will see 210.5 billion patacas worth of gross gaming revenue (GGR) this year, just 15 percent more than they did in 2023, the Macau Daily Times reports.
The estimate by Lee, managing partner at IGamiX, is somewhat less than the government’s forecast of 216 billion patacas and is the most conservative yet.
Lee earlier told the Times that GGR had the potential to be affected by non-market factors, including the number of individual visas issued to mainland Chinese travellers – who make up the vast majority of casino clientele – and other regulatory constraints.
[See more: Macao casinos’ annual GGR hits 183.1 billion patacas, ending year strongly]
Last November, University of Macau gaming scholar Davis Fong put forward a 220 billion pataca prediction for 2024 – while international brokerage companies Fitch Ratings and Morgan Stanley have forecast 231 and 234 billion patacas, respectively.
Compared with 2023’s final GGR tally of 183 billion patacas, those three predictions are 20, 26 and 28 percent increases, compared to Lee’s 15 percent forecast.
Macao’s pre-pandemic GGR in 2019 was 292.5 billion patacas, which places the 2023 figure at 62.6 percent of the pre-pandemic level.
