Gaming revenue shows improvement in first week of July: analyst

Gross gaming revenue (GGR) recorded a significant increase during the first week of July compared to the past two months, despite the ongoing travel and border restrictions imposed by the SAR due to Covid-19.
However, brokerage Sanford C. Bernstein is still not confident that July’s overall GGR will show improvement as travel restrictions remain “in place which continues to limit visitation and revenue.”
The institution estimates that the city’s GGR for July 1 to 5 is around 350 million patacas, which equates to an average of 70 million patacas per day.
“Month-to-date average daily revenue is down 91% compared to July 2019 (789 million patacas) and up 193% compared to June 2020 (24 million patacas) and up 23% compared to May 2020 (57 million patacas),” wrote analysts Vitaly Umansky, Tianjiao Yu and Kelsey Zhu.
“At this stage, we cannot estimate July’s GGR with any confidence as we have no clarity on the timing of cross-border travel and Individual Visit Scheme (IVS) visas resumption,” the analysts added.
Currently, the central government is still not issuing Individual Visit Scheme (IVS) as part of its measures to deter the spread of Covid-19, despite many analysts forecasting that the scheme may return this month after the National People’s Congress session in May.
Only those with valid IVS have been entering the city since the pandemic outbreak. Since February, when the impact of the coronavirus began to be felt in Macau, revenue has tracked at near-zero levels.
Last month, the city’s GGR dropped 97% year-on-year in June, falling to a yearly low of just 716 million patacas.
Sanford C. Bernstein previously noted that the easing of these travel restrictions will determine when gross gaming revenue begins to pick up and at what pace.
However, the recent outbreak in Beijing may delay the anticipated reopening of borders.