The Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, commonly known as DICJ, released a statistical report on the Macau casino gaming. The report, on Friday, has revealed a 22.6 percent rise in gross gaming revenue (GGR) of Macau to MOP 23.03 billion (US $2.86 billion) in November.
The Macau casino sector brokerage firms had released notes, which had depicted a growth of 18 percent for GGR this year.
The statistical data showed that GGR growth marked its 16th consecutive month this November in the market.
The latest monthly report of Macau GGR showed the market response in accordance to the forecast that showed a positive trend. The casino GGR; from January, 2017 to November, 2017; rose by 19.5 percent as compared to the last year data to MOP 243.04 billion. The GGR statistics showed that the GGR of MOP 233.2 billion for the complete year of 2016 has been surpassed by the GGR of the 11 months of 2017.
In a note on Friday, JP Morgan Securities (Asia Pacific) Ltd analysts Sean Zhuang and DS Kim had said that average daily revenue of MOP 768 million (US $95.5 million) for month of November implied that it was the “best non-holiday” day-to-day performance “in three years, only topped by this year’s October Golden Week and Chinese New Year demand.”
November is the fifth consecutive month that had beaten the market expectation of Macau GGR, the institution added.
“Wildly ahead of expectations,” remarked the Brokerage Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd on November GGR.
While referring to the high end customers, “We continue to voice caution about the strength (and volatility) surrounding VIP,” stated analysts Vitaly Umansky, Zhen Gong and Cathy Huang.
“High hold rates in VIP along with continued volume strength creates volatility and lack of ability to more accurately forecast the monthly trend,” they added.
The brokerage firm Union Gaming Securities Asia Ltd expert Grant Goversten that they had expected an expansion of 30 percent in VIP GGR for November.
“As we’ve noted previously, Macau continues to see a better quality gaming customer even as the headline official visitation rate suggests only modest growth. In other words, lower-quality visitors are generally being replaced by higher-quality visitors,” the analyst stated, attributing this in part to “a greater number of hotel rooms available to marketing teams that can then be allocated to high quality players”.
