Have the media and analysts been misled to the tune of billions of patacas per month regarding Macau’s stellar gross gaming revenues (GGR) in the first quarter of 2010?
The reason we ask this question is that a figure quoted recently in the Macau media giving the GGR for the first three weeks of March as 13 billion patacas has been challenged—reportedly by a source with “direct knowledge of the situation”.
Reuters in Hong Kong, quoting the source, said the GGR figure for the whole of March would only be around HKD13 billion. That’s the equivalent of 13.3 billion patacas. For the original number quoted in the Macau media to have been accurate, it would mean Macau had only managed to produce revenues of 300,000 patacas in the final week of March—an unlikely scenario.
Just as tellingly, the source told Reuters the figures for February were “around the same” as March. That could mean previously reported unofficial data for February of 13.5 billion patacas aren’t correct either. While the odd half billion patacas here or there won’t make a major dent in Macau’s year-on-year growth numbers, it does give cause for concern, as it could mean analysts are working with unofficial monthly figures that are out by 3.5 percent or more, rather than a few basis points here or there.
Of course, even the briefing reported by Reuters on Friday correcting the figures quoted in Macau newspapers is technically ‘unofficial,’ even if it comes from ‘an official’. We will have to wait and see for the full picture. Macau’s gaming regulator, the DICJ, doesn’t issue the official GGR numbers for the first quarter of 2010 until mid-April.
How did the industry get in this pickle? The confusion points to a systemic problem with some of the performance data coming out of the Macau market. That problem is Macau leaks like a sieve regarding GGR and market share numbers. We have all got so used to crunching numbers based on those unofficial figures that we have potentially led ourselves as a sector into error. (We include Asian Gaming Intelligence in this sackcloth and ashes analysis.)
The initial conduit for the information leaks was Lusa, the respected Portuguese language news service. It was reasonably assumed to be well plugged in to official sources in Macau, and most times its reports were accurate to within a few basis points.
The real problem probably began when other media outlets joined in the feeding frenzy in the search for their own source for leaks. That frenzy reached its logical journalistic conclusion this February, when, in a well-meaning effort to get a jump on other news outlets, some local media started issuing not monthly unofficial figures, but unofficial figures for the first three weeks of the month. These were just as eagerly pounced upon by the industry and its ancillary professions, as were the full month unofficial figures. Asian Gaming Intelligence was among those that reported them, although always with the caveat they were ‘unofficial’.
Another potential point of confusion is that some media outlets may be reporting the GGR figures in HKD and others in patacas, and other media outlets are then conflating the two sets of figures. Given the exchange rate of HKD0.97 to one pataca, the margin of error can stack up on such huge sums.
There is at least one solution to the problem that AGI can think of. That’s for the Macau government to acknowledge the reality of the intense global interest (not to say interest of the central government in Beijing) in the performance of the Macau gaming market, and publish the official monthly and quarterly GGR and market share figures within days of the expiry of the relevant reporting period, not weeks or months after the fact.
Market share isn’t even technically an official metric issued by the DICJ. The operators are famously sensitive about releasing market share numbers (especially if they show their company’s performance is on the slide, natch). So on market share at least, we will probably all have to rely on the tried and not always 100 percent trusted leak system for the time being.
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