LUSA 01/17/2025

Lusa - Business News - Macau: Casinos beat pre-Covid baccarat earnings, VIP betting still lower

Macau, China, Jana. 16, 2025 (Lusa) - The most popular game in Macau casinos has already surpassed pre-pandemic levels in 2024, but total revenues are still far from historical peaks due to VIP betting, according to data released on Thursday.

Baccarat in the so-called mass market reached revenues of 137.9 billion patacas (€16.7 billion) last year, revealed the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ).

This figure represents an increase of 24.8% compared to 2023 and also an increase of 14.2% compared to the previous record, set in 2019, before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In 2024, mass baccarat accounted for 60.8% of total casino revenue in the territory, and is by far the most popular game of chance among Chinese gamblers.

Macau is the gambling capital of the world and the only place in China where casino gambling is legal.

Even so, last year the total revenue of the city's casinos - 226.8 billion patacas (€27.5 billion) - represented only 77.5% of that recorded in 2019.

This is because big bets (VIP gambling) in Macau were only 40.5% of the levels set before the pandemic, despite rising by 21.2% in 2024, to 54.8 billion patacas (€6.64 billion).

In 2019, the so-called VIP baccarat game accounted for 46.2% of Macau's total casino revenue. But in 2024 this segment accounted for 24.1%.

High-stakes betting was affected by the arrest of the head of the world's largest VIP betting company in November 2021.

The former executive director of Suncity, Alvin Chau Cheok Wa, was sentenced in January 2023 to 18 years in prison for illegal gambling and secret society, in a case that saw the number of gambling promoter licences issued in Macau fall from 85 to 18.

In April 2023, the former head of another VIP bookmaker in Macau, the Tak Chun Group, Levo Chan Weng Lin, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for offences ranging from illegal gambling to money laundering.

In 2024, the Chinese semi-autonomous region still recorded nine million patacas (€1.09 million) in revenue from betting on horse races, which ended on 30 March.

After more than 40 years, the Macau government announced on 15 January 2024 that the contract would be terminated due to the ‘operating difficulties’ of the racecourse's concessionaire, which had accumulated losses since 2002.

Companhia de Corrida de Cavalos de Macau, S.A., was linked to Sociedade de Jogos de Macau (SJM), one of the territory's six casino operators. The late tycoon Stanley Ho Hung Sun (1921-2020) founded SJM.

In July 2018, the region stopped greyhound racing after the closure of the dog track, which is also linked to SJM, on a 40,000-square-metre site on the Macau peninsula.

VQ/ADB // ADB.

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