Deutsche Bank has lowered its estimate for the 2021 gross gaming revenue (GRR) of the city following August’s steep downturn in revenue.
The investment banking company revised its forecasts to MOP97 billion for the whole year, about MOP33 billion less than the SAR government had predicted earlier this year.
Managing director of Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., Carlo Santarelli, forecast that the city will record MOP19.2 billion of casino revenue in the third quarter, of which about MOP12 billion will be from the mass market, and MOP7.3 billion from the VIP sector.
To reach this figure, casinos must generate over MOP7 billion revenue this month.
In terms of the full year GGR, the firm forecasts that a total of MOP61.1 billion will be generated by the mass market, while the VIP sector could reach MOP34.4 billion.
Last month’s GGR plummeted to MOP4.44 billion, attributable to the Delta cases discovered in early August which led to strict immigration measures.
Since then, Macau has seen a downturn in mainland visitors, as Zhuhai reduced the validity period for nucleic acid tests from 24 hours to 12 hours.
Early this year, the firm slightly rolled back its previous projection of Macau’s GGR for 2021, from USD26.60 billion to USD26.35 billion.
Local experts have already expressed that the 2021 GGR is unlikely to reach the government’s target of MOP130 billion, which is around 44.5% of 2019 figures.
Meanwhile, although August was also the lowest GGR month of 2021, there is some positive momentum heading into September.
Sanford C. Bernstein noted that “visitation and GGR have experienced the beginning of recovery in the latter part of the month as the travel impediments have been gradually relaxed, and China reducing travel restrictions in many areas after passing the peak of the most recent Covid outbreak.”
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