Casinos in the Macau Special Administrative Region brought in gross gaming revenue of approximately MOP 86.86bn ($10.82bn) in 2021, according to figures released by the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau.
The gaming regulator said cumulative gross revenue for 2021 was up 43.7% over the MOP 60.44bn realized in 2020. However, last year’s GGR was down 70.3% from pre-pandemic 2019.
Gross gaming revenue in December 2021 was MOP 7.96bn, a 1.8% improvement from the same month one year earlier, when GGR was MOP 7.81bn.
The December 2021 figure also was up from MOP 6.74bn in November 2021.
The full-year figure for 2021 was held down by a big drop in gaming revenue during October. Thanks to numerous government restrictions initiated on October 4 following a surge in Covid cases, casinos managed to generate just MOP 4.36bn, down 40% from what had been a strong MOP 7.27bn during October 2020.
The best month during 2021 was May, when Macau casinos saw GGR of MOP 10.44bn. That figure was up 492.2% from May 2020’s MOP 1.76bn.
The first half of 2021 was significantly stronger than the second half, as casino GGR was on a generally upward trend from January (MOP 8.02bn) through July (MOP 8.44bn). However, revenue in August dropped to MOP 4.44bn, followed by four straight months in which GGR did not rise above MOP 8bn (5.87bn, 4.36bn, 6.74bn and 7.96bn, September through December, respectively).
The local government began easing restrictions at the end of October, and travel numbers began picking up significantly in December. Daily visitor arrivals began ticking back up over 40,000 per day.
