Gaming market has bottomed out: Lui Che-woo

Monday 9th of May 2016

Galaxy Entertainment chairman Lui Che-woo says Macau’s gaming market has bottomed out, after close to two years of continuous decline, reports SCMP.

“The [revenues] from the beginning of this year until now have not continued to drop sharply and have stabilised,” said Lui after the company’s AGM.

“I believe this means we can say [the market] has already bottomed out.”

Gross gaming revenue (GGR) in April showed a decline of 9.5 percent year on year, to MOP 17.3 billion (US$2.2 billion), according to official data.

The results were up from analyst estimates, which had predicted a decline of 13.5 percent for the month of April.

“Further, April 2016 actually notably outperformed what we’ve seen on a sequential basis the last three years... Put together, the stability story is clearly intact and we are expecting nice sequential growth in May and are already seeing signs of this,” said Union Gaming.

Lui’s eldest son, Francis Lui Yiu Tung who is also Galaxy’s deputy chairman said in February that “the worst is already over.”

At the time, Francis said the weaker performing VIP operators in Macau have already been squeezed out, after promoters went down from 300 in the golden days to the current numbers at just a little over 100.

Bricks & Mortar Stabilization GGR