Macau experiences third successive year of decline

Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau recently published Macau’s final 2016 gambling revenue figures, revealing an accumulated gross revenue decline of 3.3% to 223.2bn patacas, compared to 230.8bn patacas in 2015.

Despite another year of decline, the overall drop of 7.6bn is significantly less dramatic than the 34.3% plummet in Macau’s gambling revenue during 2015.

The last ten months have seen a steady narrowing in the variance between the accumulated gross figures of 2015 and 2016, and 2016’s monthly gross revenue has experienced an increase from the previous year during the last 5 months, with year-on-year growth of 8% recorded for December.

New casino resorts have been identified as a key factor behind the region’s success in the third and fourth quarters of 2016, improving on fortunes that suffered in the wake of China’s campaign against corruption from the beginning of 2014.

Fitch Ratings published a comment from Alex Bumazhny, Senior Director of U.S. Corporates, regarding the Asian market: "Macau gaming, now firmly at the bottom of the cycle, has better long-term prospects given investments in new supply, improvements in mass market indicators and under-penetration of gaming throughout the rest of Asia.”