Macau mass baccarat nearly 60pct of 1Q GGR: regulator

GGRAsia
 
Macau mass baccarat nearly 60pct of 1Q GGR: regulator
Wild Casino

Mass-market baccarat generated nearly MOP20.51 billion (US$2.54 billion) in Macau in the first three months of 2023, or 59.2 percent of all casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) in the period.

The figure represented an increase of 89.5 percent year-on-year, and was up 207.8 percent quarter-on-quarter, according to data released on Monday by the city’s casino regulator, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau.

VIP baccarat, which in 2019 represented nearly half of all Macau GGR, accounted for almost MOP8.57 billion of Macau’s MOP34.64-billion GGR in the first quarter this year. It corresponded to a market share of 24.7 percent.

Slot machine revenue was MOP2.45 billion, a market share of circa 7.1 percent.

Aggregate revenue in the overall mass-market segment – including slot machines – stood at just below MOP26.08 billion, accounting for a share of nearly 75.3 percent of Macau’s first-quarter casino GGR.

Macau’s casino GGR was up 246.9 percent year-on-year in March, to just under MOP12.74 billion. The March result was the best monthly performance since January 2020 – prior to the onset of the pandemic alert.

The number of live gaming tables in the Macau market stood at 6,000 at the end of the March quarter, while the tally of slot machines was 12,000.

In August last year, the Macau government announced the aggregate number of the city’s gaming tables and gaming machines that can be exploited at any one time by the city’s gaming concessionaires, as well as the minimum annual target of casino GGR to be generated from each gaming table and each gaming machine. Both parameters took effect from January 1, 2023, in tandem with the new gaming concessions.

A Chief Executive dispatch stated that the minimum annual limit of “gross income” to be generated from each gaming table was MOP7.0 million; and that of each gaming machine was MOP300,000.