Gaming | Citi keeps May revenue forecast at MOP20.5b

Based on a report on the industry’s data, Citigroup has said that Macau’s gaming revenue for the first ten days of May reached MOP7 billion, while the overall average daily gaming revenue reached MOP731 million during the period, 14% higher than that of April. This has been mainly driven by the long holiday of May 1. It is expected that the GGR will be normalized for the rest of the month. Macau’s gross gambling revenue (GGR) forecast for May was kept at MOP20.5 billion, down 37% from a year ago.
Meanwhile, UBS says that the drop in GGR is expected to stabilize slightly in May. But there are still no clear signs of recovery, acknowledged analyst Anthony Wong.
Wong explained that the May GGR has so far been around MOP730 million (USD91.4 million), up from MOP690 million and MOP640 million in March and April respectively. However, the increase is mainly due to the Chinese holidays at the beginning of the month, with the pace likely to normalize over time.
USB expects the May total to show a drop of between 34 and 38 percent, proving slightly better than the 39-percent decline seen in April.
Mass revenue is likely to be down 20 to 25 percent year-on-
year, with a VIP plunge of between 42 percent and 47 percent. However, on a sequential basis, Wong said that both mass and VIP revenue may have slowed from the first quarter. “We believe there have been no clear signs of sequential demand recovery, which is assumed in current consensus forecasts,” he said.
Commenting on the table allocations for Galaxy Entertainment’s new Macau Phase 2 and Broadway Macau, which are scheduled to open before the end of the month, he says that the market is expecting them to receive 150 allocations. Any allocation that falls below that level will be detrimental to the market, he says. PC