Macao’s rapidly rebounding visitor numbers are not translating to growth in per-person gross gaming revenue (GGR) at the city’s casinos, according to financial research group CreditSights.
A recent note from analysts Nicholas Chen and David Bussey, cited by Inside Asian Gaming,
observed that per-person GGR may have passed its peak, partly due to the collapse of the junket market. Junket operators specialise in bringing affluent VIP gamblers to the SAR, but a number of high-profile criminal convictions has been accompanied by government crackdown on the once-incredibly profitable segment of the gaming industry in recent years.
Chen and Bussey also noted that visits from China’s more wealthy provinces – the likes of Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin – had already recovered to their pre-Covid 19 numbers. “Any further visitation upside from mainland China would likely largely come from the other provinces with lower [gross domestic product] per capita,” they said.
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In January, average GGR per visitor (5,006 patacas) was 26 percent lower than the same month in 2024 – though this was likely skewed by the timing of Lunar New Year, when Macao welcomed many non-gambling visitors.
However, the analysts also pointed to healthier figures in February and acknowledged that a year-on-year improvement in per-visitor GGR was “not entirely off the table.”
Earlier this month, gaming expert David Bonnet suggested that GGR in general may have hit a ceiling in Macao – pointing to a number of national and local initiatives rolled out last year that could be tempering GGR growth. These included the crackdown on illegal money exchange operators at the SAR’s casino-resorts, the central authorities’ increasing focus on curbing capital flight from the Chinese mainland, and Macao’s newly promulgated Illegal Gaming Law.
