August Macau gaming revenues rise after a drop in July
Despite the setback brought on by a mild coronavirus outbreak in neighbouring China, the total gross gaming revenues in Macau for August allegedly grew by almost 234% year over year to reach $554.49 million.
The figure for the 31-day period marked the seventh consecutive month of year-over-year improvements, according to a report from Inside Asian Gaming, which cited official information from the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau regulator. This brought the associated eight-month total for the former Portuguese enclave up by 70.1% to roughly $7.72 billion. All of this, according to the source, follows a coronavirus-affected 2020 for the city, during which its total annual gross gaming revenues fell by 79.3% to $7.54 billion.
Chronological puzzle
More than 40 casinos can be found in Macau, including the renowned Casino Grand Lisboa facility from SJM Holdings Limited and the much bigger Studio City Macau venture by Melco Resorts and Entertainment Limited. Despite the month's year-over-year growth, the source also stated that the total still represented a decline of nearly 47.4% from July's final total of just over $1.05 billion and represented the lowest total since the roughly $276 million recorded for September of last year.
Precautions for pandemics:
The government of Macau apparently implemented a variety of travel precautions that mandated arrivals from a number of mainland locations to be quarantined for at least two weeks in response to a minor coronavirus epidemic in China in June. After recording its first positive case in more than a year, which was eventually traced to a family of four who had crossed the border in order to visit friends in the neighbouring metropolis of Zhuhai, the region allegedly started a widespread testing blitz of its citizens early last month.
This effort, according to Inside Asian Gaming, did not unearth any new cases of the coronavirus; nevertheless, it did contain stringent guidelines that tightened mainland visitors' entry requirements and cut the validity time for required negative infection tests from seven days to only 48 hours. The source said that most of these restrictions have lately been relaxed to assist the territory's daily cross-border visiting rate to surpass an outstanding 21,000 once more.
Favourable appearance
Additionally, it has been suggested that the recent opening of the $5 billion Grand Lisboa Palace expansion by local operator SJM Holdings Limited may have aided Macau's August performance. This enormous building, which has been under construction for more than seven years, opened on 30 July with a 290,000 square foot casino that will eventually house 500 gaming tables in addition to 1,200 slot machines.
