A report concerning the revenues generated by casino venues during the Chinese New Year celebrations was published mere hours ago.
According to the information, a lot of tourists visited the Chinese administrative region. In combination with the Macau-based players, the mass floors generated decent revenues. However, the statistics for the VIP gambling revenues is not really optimistic.
The celebrations started on February 19th and more than 434,000 people arrived to the Asian gambling Mecca in a single day.
As expected, the majority of tourists were from Mainland China but Macau officials said that the data might not be absolutely accurate since the rest of the visitors were workers or students, which makes the estimates about the number of visitors likely to go to casinos not absolutely accurate.
According to prominent market analysts, the previous week was a really successful one. In a special note, released on the matter, they said that casinos have not been so busy since the Golden Week, which took place in October.
The market analysts went on to say that apart from the busy casino floors, the Chinese New Year celebrations brought about another positive change. An increase in the amount of the minimum bets was also reported.
As for the weak VIP revenues, market analysts expect a significant increase this week. In other words, they are convinced that the last days of February are going to be really profitable and to revive the struggling casino sector in Macau.
However, they do not believe that the satisfactory revenue generated during the holidays will be enough to make up for the losses local casinos have been experiencing for a couple of months.
What is more, regardless of the positive numbers reported for the last week, February will most probably be the eighth consecutive month when a drop in revenues is to be reported.
Market analysts said that a combination of factors is to blame for the problematic revenues and the sharp drop which has been reported over the last seven months. The anti-corruption campaign of the Chinese President is the key factor but the decline in the popularity of junket operators and the closure of several VIP junket rooms is also worthy of mentioning.
This year, the decline is expected to be approximately 45% YOY. Bearing in mind the complicated situation, the revenues generated were decent but if seen from another perspective, the revenues are weaker than what is usually generated during such massive celebrations.
