The recent 12-day closure of Macau’s casinos and the ongoing impact of citywide COVID-19 restrictions will see gross gaming revenue fall 99% on July 2019 levels this month and continue to impact GGR well into July.
In a Monday note, brokerage Bernstein observed that Macau’s casinos were still facing a near-zero revenue environment despite reopening their doors last Saturday, with no immediate end in sight.
As such, GGR will not only fall by 99% on 2019 levels in July but is expected to be down by at least 89% in August – possibly more if travel between Macau and mainland China isn’t eased.
“Expectations are already in place for a very poor GGR environment in July and part of August,” said analysts Vitaly Umansky, Louis Li and Shirley Yang.
“We expect casino GGR remains constrained during the last week of the month and early August, and largely maintain our July 2022 GGR forecast to be down 99% vs July 2019, and August 2022 to be down 89% vs August 2019.
“[August GGR] could still be lower depending on length of border closure, capacity limit, and other COVID restrictions.
“The key for Macau GGR recovery is to have local COVID cases reduced to zero and resume quarantine-free travel with mainland China.”
The analysts said total GGR for the first 24 days of July combined was just MOP$200 million (US$24.8 million) – largely unchanged over the past two weeks. This compares with MOP$24.45 billion (US$3.01 billion) in GGR in July 2019.
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