Macau’s casinos recorded gross gaming revenue (GGR) of MOP14.72 billion ($1.83 billion) in April, the highest monthly GGR figure since January 2020. The figure shows Macau’s gaming industry maintaining positive momentum following removing most border restrictions on January 8th.
According to information from the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ), the April total was 450 percent higher than April 2022 and 15.6 percent higher than March, when March GGR had already reached MOP12.74 billion ($1.58 billion).
However, the figure for April is still only 62.4 percent of the MOP23.6 billion ($2.94 billion) recorded in April 2019. Gaming revenues had slumped as low as MOP398 million ($49 million) in July 2022, at the height of Macau’s first main COVID outbreak.
For the first four months of 2023 combined, Macau’s GGR is up 141.4 percent year-on-year to MOP46.36 billion ($5.75 billion). This compares to the whole of GGR in FY22, which was only MOP42.19 billion ($5.23 billion); only four months of 2023 already exceeded Macau’s 2022 GGR.
Macau’s GGR scenario has changed drastically since January 8th of this year, after the government canceled most of its travel restrictions, dropping all testing requirements for inbound visitors from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and later for other countries.
Ferry and bus services between Macau and Hong Kong also resumed in January, for the first time in almost three years, prompting Chinese New Year visitor numbers to reach 451,057 during the Golden Week holiday, a rise of nearly 300 percent over visitation during CNY 2022.
At the same time, Macau received almost five million visitors in the first quarter of the year. This figure is almost as many as there were through the entirety of 2022. Macau only recorded 5.7 million visitors last year, the lowest number of visitor arrivals in 20 years.
