The year 2014 was a tough one for the gambling industry worldwide and even the most popular gambling destinations on a global scale reported weak revenues.
As far as the situation in the largest gambling hub in Asia – Macau, is concerned, local casinos have been going through a serious crisis and the revenues they generated had nothing in common with those reported during the previous years.
The combination of unfavorable factors made casino moguls such as Sheldon Adelson, Stanley Ho and James Packer lose billions of dollars and the market analysts kept making more or less precise predictions when they are going to have their investments back.
Unfortunately, the expectations are January 2015 to be another month when significant losses will be reported. In addition to the $100 billion that have already been wiped off from the stocks during the previous year, January is believed to be the 8-th consecutive month when no indication for a revenue increase is noticed, which automatically makes 2014 the worst year in the gambling history of Macau.
It seems like Melco Crown and James Packer and Stanley Ho in particular lost a sum of money in 2014. The amount was equal to HK$61 billion in market capitalization. Compared to 2013, the numbers were pretty different.
Strange as it may sound, Melco Crown should be thankful for such a decrease as the largest loss was reported by Sands China, owned by Sheldon Adelson.
The casino mogul, who holds 70% of company’s shares, lost HK$208 billion.
SJM Holdings, the company, managed by Stanley Ho, reported market value loss amounting to 52% or HK$73 billion market capitalization.
The campaign of the Chinese President Xi Jinping against corruption is believed to be among the main reasons for the drastic downfall. In addition, high-roller players have opted for gambling venues, different from the Macau-based ones where they can freely spend their money.
Macau is a special administrative region and it is, actually, the only area on the territory of China where gambling has been legalized. Although Macau is supposed to attract visitors from all around the country, statistics show that overall, the revenue generated in 2014 reached a bit more than 350 billion patacas.
Despite the fact that 2015 is believed to be more favorable to the Macau-based casinos, market analysts could not say for certain how much the growth would be. What is more, there is a great difference between analysts’ predictions. While most of them are convinced that there will be an increase of up to 10%, the number of those who are likely to believe that there will be a further downfall is also significant.
