Macau gaming revenues hit $3.1 billion in April, up 22 percent

3 May 2012

By Howard Stutz

Macau casinos collected $3.1 billion in gaming revenues in April, a 22 percent increase over the same month a year ago.

For the first four months of 2012, gaming revenues in Macau have increased 25.7 percent, according to figures released Wednesday by the Special Administrative Region's casino regulators. In 2011, Macau casinos collected $33.5 billion from gamblers.

Three Nevada-based casino operators, Las Vegas Sands Corp., Wynn Resorts Ltd., and MGM Resorts International, operate casinos in Macau.

Las Vegas Sands opened the first phase of the $4.4 billion Sands Cotai Central with two hotel-casinos on April 11. However, Deutsche Bank gaming analyst Carlo Santarelli said, "Contributions from Sands Cotai Central don't appear to be having a meaningful impact on gross gaming revenue to date."

Union Gaming Group gaming analyst Grant Govertsen said May's revenue report could benefit from Sands Cotai Central, "although we note that ongoing construction disruption will keep the property from reaching its full potential this year."

Govertsen calculated that April produced the third-highest daily gross gaming revenue on record. He estimated casinos collected an average of $105 million per day from customers.

Several analysts speculated the revenues could have been higher, but lower than normal table game hold percentages reduced the amount of money casinos collected.