Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | June 2011 12 T wo weeks’ trading doesn’t make a business revolution— but it does appear that Galaxy Macau actually expanded the Macau gaming market in May rather than merely cannibalising its rivals. At the time Inside Asian Gaming went to press, Lusa—the Portuguese news agency—was reporting market sources saying gross gaming revenues (GGR) for May were likely to hit MOP24 billion (US$3 billion). This implied an average daily gross for the month of MOP774 million. That’s around 13% higher than Macau’s MOP683 million average daily gross in April 2011. April was itself a year on year record, bringing in MOP20.5 billion across the month. There are good reasons to be cautious, however, about such comparisons and using them to extrapolate in relation to Galaxy Macau. One is that April has one fewer day than May. A second is that seasonal variations in market-wide visitor traffic make month on month comparisons less useful than year on year ones. A third is that the Macau market is dominated by live table baccarat, and that game has a lot of volatility in the amount the operator gets to ‘hold’ and thus what profit the operator makes from that part of the gaming business. Some weeks and some quarters can be particularly lucky Pie Squared? The opening of Galaxy Macau seems to have spurred real market growth Before the flood—publicity photos of Galaxy Macau’s main floor prior to opening