November Starts Slowly for Macau’s Casinos as GGR Gains Little Ground

November 10, 2021 Earnings & Filings Industry Updates

Macau daily casino gross gambling revenue (GGR), for the first week in November, was up 12% week-on-week. This was supported by significant recovery of visitor volume to the city. However, GGR was still “lighter than expected,” according to brokerage Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd on Monday.

According to the firm, the average daily rate from November 1 through 7 inclusive was MOP235 million (US$29.3 million), compared to MOP209 million ($26 million) the week before. The run rate over the past week is 69% lower than in November 2019, but 67% higher than October

Macau GGR Still Struggling to Normalize
Bernstein stated that since October 19, following an earlier COVID-19 alert in Macau, daily border movements into and out of Macau have risen to over 50,000 per day. This is “not far from May peak” of 57,000 daily movements.

Analysts Vitaly Umansky, Louis Li and Kelsey Zhu stated, “Given China’s Covid outbreak is continuing and has spread to 20 (of total 34) provinces, visitation to Macau seems reasonably solid, but average visitor spend seems low.”

According to the Bernstein team, channel checks showed that VIP play average daily volumes rose approximately 75%-80% month-on-month in November’s first week. However, hold was “below normal,” negatively impacting GGR.

The brokerage mentioned that authorities in Hong Kong were in talks with mainland authorities with the hope of easing travel conditions in December. This could be followed by a possible “larger scale” easement in February.