Macau Reports an Abysmal Month for August Revenues

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the casino industry tremendously in 2020 and the world’s largest casino gambling mecca, Macau, has felt the burn.

Macau reported its August numbers recently and it was another abysmal month of revenues. Gross gaming revenue for the month was down 94.5%, worst than the 93% decline that was expected by analysts.

Fortunately, this may be the last month of such steep declines. Bank of America analyst Billy Ng believes Macau’s business will finally start picking back up in September.

The Chinese government resumed travel visas to Macau from Zhuhai and Guangdong residents mid-month in August, but Ng said required COVID-19 testing may be delaying the first wave of visits.

Automatic visa application machines are not yet online which means potential visitors must make a reservation to apply in person and then wait an estimated seven days for their applications to be processed.

According to Ng, Macau received 9,500 visitors on Aug. 30 compared to 2,387 daily visitors on average in the month of July.

“We forecast that Sep GGR will start to pick up but still be down 80% YoY (+232% MoM), with visa to Macau already resumed in GD and to be resumed in rest of mainland from Sep 23,” Ng wrote in a note.

According to the Macau Tourism Association, Macau visitation will improve from down 90% in August to down between 70% and 80% in September and down just 50% in October.

Ng said he doesn’t expect Macau to be subject to a new blacklist of cross-border gambling tourist destinations recently established by the Chinese Ministry of Culture.