Casinos in Macau has leaned on public market players to an unprecedented extent in the last quarter of the previous year. A movement is more likely to persist behind China’s cross-border gambling war.
Macau Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ) has published a statistical figure on Friday. It shows that the regional gambling operators created a combined revenue of $2.75 in three months of the last quarter of 2020.
It is genuinely a far cry from the 72.3 billion MOP which the market harvested in the same quarter in 2019. However, the Gross volume of revenue is better than in the third quarter. Many are observing this rise as a good sign. The sum of quarter 4 makes the total amount of the financial year 2020 over around 61 billion MOP, which is almost a 54% overall share. At the same time, VIP baccarat has contributed only 7.6 billion MOP (34.5%), which is the first time for VIP to fall under 40% share. Estimating non-baccarat contributions, anyone can understand that public market gaming has also been accounted for 65.4% of the overall revenue of Macau, and it was a record.
Threat Hanging Upon the Head
The VIP baccarat fall had been forecasted in a report issued by Goldman Sachs earlier this current week that got gaming turnover in VIP rooms of Macau dominated and directed by prominent Junket operator Suncity Group were manoeuvring at just around 20% of the total amount logged in December 2019.
Suncity, claiming to operate all its Macau rooms on an optional basis, believes VIP gaming market in Asia is facing a slower recovery than expected. The junket accused the VIP slowdown of being the reason for this stricter COVID-19 testing and other requirements in both mainland China and Macau.
VIP gamblers have been running through a major threat if Beijing realizes that they have travelled abroad for gaming issues only to avert the introduced scoring system around social credit by the country. Companies, who are high rollers could achieve some deductions from this score by being exposed to the authority of their gambling authorities. It might even limit their privilege and right to travel abroad.