Local expert forecasts 2024 GGR to grow 15% from 2023

Local gaming industry expert and analyst Ben Lee has projected that local casinos’ gross gaming revenue (GGR) in 2024 should increase by some 15% when compared year-on-year with 2023.

The managing partner at IGamiX forecasts that the industry should reach the end of this year with an accumulated GGR of MOP210.52 billion, as 2023 closed with a total of MOP 183.06 billion.

This is also the most conservative forecast for 2024 so far, presenting a result even below the local government expectations of MOP216 billion.

Prior to Lee’s forecast, the most conservative projection was from another local analyst, Davis Fong, who said that the industry should generate as much as MOP220 billion in 2024.

The gaming sector scholar at the University of Macau and director of the Institute for the Study of Commercial Gaming presented this projection in November last year.

International brokerage companies seem more optimistic with Morgan Stanley recently forecasting a 28% increase for this year (MOP234.32 billion). Less than a month ago, Fitch Ratings provided a forecast of Macau’s gaming industry in 2024 as some MOP231 billion in revenue.

Traditionally, forecasts from the local government have been the most conservative, including in 2023 when the government estimated the GGR to be around MOP130 billion, a figure far from the actual one of over MOP183B.

Lee has previously explained to the Times that it is very difficult to make an accurate and reliable projection for the local market one year ahead. This is because the local market is “special” in that it is subject to several decisive external factors, other than the will of the players, that are not easy to predict. Among such factors are aspects such as the issuing of individual visas to mainland visitors (the large majority of Macau gamblers) as well as other aspects related to potential constraints to be imposed on “visitors influx” that can come at any time and that are not “market regulated.”