Macau's gaming revenue for Q1 of 2008 exceeds US$3.7 billion
18/4/2008 16:40
Macau's gaming regulation authority yesterday announced that the Special
Administrative Region (SAR) logged over 30.085 billion patacas (about US$3.761
billion) in gaming revenues for the first quarter of 2008.
The gaming revenue
for the period almost reached the total of 2003, which stood at 30.315 billion
patacas (US$3.79 billion), according to the statistics released by the Gaming
Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ) of the SAR government
The DICJ
figures also showed that the island city's 29 casinos housed a total of 13,552
slot machines and 4,311 gaming tables, which saw a decrease of 64 tables
compared with 2007.
Despite the strong growth of gaming revenue, gaming
tables in local casinos were decreasing, which was a sign that Macau's gaming
industry development is more and more concentrated on the VIP market, said Zeng
Zhonglu, professor of the Social, Economic and Public Policy Research Center at
the Macau Polytechnic Institute.
According to DICJ, the gaming revenue for
VIP Baccarat, one of the most popular game types in local casinos, reached some
20.801 billion patacas (US$2.6 billion) in the first quarter of this year, which
was over half of the total for the period.
Zeng predicted that gaming revenue
for the whole of this year could grow by 30 to 40 percent compared with 2007,
given the current development of local gaming industry.
But he also warned
that too much dependence on the VIP market will hurt Macau's gaming industry,
since the VIP market boom will not last for a very long
time.
Xinhua
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