Macau gaming cash surges 247pc

Macau's casinos had their best month since the earliest days of the pandemic, with gaming revenue surging 247 percent in March after Chinese tourists flocked to the city as the end of zero-Covid sparked a travel boom.

Gross gaming revenue reached 12.7 billion patacas (HK$12.33 billion), data released by the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau showed. The result topped the median analyst estimate of a 205 percent year-on-year increase and is the highest monthly takings since January 2020.

While March revenue rose 23 percent from the previous month, it was still 51 percent down from the 2019 level.

Total visits by mid-March was about 65,000 a day, back to about 55 percent of 2019 levels, Morgan Stanley analysts led by Praveen Choudhary estimated in a note on March 26.

Macau reported 1.6 million tourist visits in February, or a daily average of 57,000, which was about 45 percent of the 2019 levels. While visitor numbers have been steadily picking up, that does not necessarily translate into a jump in gaming revenue. Macau has seen a surge in budget tour groups from mainland China, with members typically having less spending power than the high rollers that have historically underpinned the casino sector.