Most high-end players are having no problem finding legitimate ways of bringing funds into Macau, despite recent concerns over the potential impact of Beijing’s latest crackdown on illegal cross-border fund flows, according to Citibank.
In a Monday note providing insights into the investment bank’s latest Macau table survey for the month of July, analysts George Choi and Ryan Cheung said gaming demands “remains robust” based on their observations with the number of premium mass players seen in the city’s high limit areas considerably higher than a year earlier.
Specifically, total wager observed in July 2024 was up 34% over the same month last year to HK$12.2 million on a 61% increase in premium mass players seen to 575. Wager per player was also 15% higher than in the June 2024 survey.
Noting that their monthly survey allow them to take a “pulse” of Macau’s liquidity, Choi and Cheung said, “The improving trends observed from our July 2024 table survey suggests that concerns by some investors about a crackdown on illegal cross-border fund flows and its negative impact on Macau GGR is likely overdone.
“We continue to believe that most players in Macau have their own legitimate ways to get their funds over to Macau, sufficient for them to bet as much as HK$1 million a hand based on our observations.”
Providing more color around those observations, the analysts revealed that they witnessed 23 players betting HK$100,000 in July or more compared with 19 a year earlier, while this was the second straight month they had seen a player betting HK$1 million per hand.
“[This] player of the month with a HK$6 million chip stack in front of him was betting at the high limit area of MGM Cotai,” they said. “Honorable mentions included a HK$700,000 whale at the Supreme Room of MGM Cotai and a HK$500,000 whale at Wynn Palace’s Chairman Club. Another interesting observation: the two whales at Plaza Apex we saw were Japanese players.”
Citi also provided an update on the rollout of smart gaming tables across Macau’s gaming floors, noting that all 43 tables at Galaxy Macau’s Pavilion South room are now smart tables, as are all 18 tables at Sands China’s Apex Room at Plaza. At The Venetian Macao, 73 of the 414 baccarat tables in the grind mass area observed are smart, while Wynn has added six more smart tables to its inventory at Encore, increasing the total to 30 of the 199 baccarat tables in operation.
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