Has luck Run Out For Macau
14th January, 2009
It seems the western recession is spreading it's tentacles to the far east. This comes as Macau, Asia’s answer to Las Vegas, has found that it's amount of visitor numbers are down and the amount of gambling revenue is not correlating with forecasts.
The once Portuguese colony has had a long run of good luck when it comes to players and increased revenue and profits. However now it looks like lady luck is no longer smiling for the market.
The coupling of the economic situation and Chinese visa restrictions has meant the ‘high-rollers travel has not been as fluent as Macau wish. And the news that China would not change their position on this sent shares in Macau casino operators plummeting, with Galaxy reporting the steepest fall in four years.
Currently like its US counterpart Macau is having to deal with a reduction in the amount of players, and so the amount of money being spent at tables and ultimately less money to spend on their expansion plans to transform enclave into Asia’s biggest tourist destination.
However to put Macau in the same boat a Las Vegas and Atlantic City would be an overstatement though. Since 1998 Macau with the help of china’s high-rollers- and millions of mainland punters over took Las Vegas as a gambling resort, scooping more money last year than Las Vegas and Atlantic City put together.
Macau earned £7billion last year from the tables alone, which is no surprised considering there are still thousands of gamblers in all the casinos, from Steve Wynn’s downtown pleasure palace to the MGM Grand.
Suggestions to why Macau is, even with profits down 20 per cent in the last four months of 2008, still managing £650 million a month in profits is down to the customer base. Over 70 per cent of Macau revenue comes from its high-rollers, and knowing the economic climate is unlikely to affect their pockets, Macau strives to attract more.
By Rommon
