Review G2E ASIA 2015
The message from Macau’s Chief Executive Fernando Chui was ‘stay calm and peaceful to observe trends with wisdom.’ He urged locals to continue working toward diversifying Macau’s economy away from gambling. “Our objectives are clear; our direction is right,” he said.
The government is also moving towards a full ban on smoking in its casinos, a move confirmed by Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture, Alexis Tam Chong Weng, despite claims that this could worsen the trend. Macau currently allows smoking in VIP gaming rooms whilst mass market smokers must stop gambling and smoke in airport style, enclosed, smoking lounges.
Mr. Govertsen and colleague Felicity Chiang said: “While we would like to see a compromise reached that would allow for smoking lounges to remain within casinos, Beijing’s tough stance on smoking could provide the Macau government with enough political cover to carry out their plans for a full smoking ban. Note that GGR at the convenience-oriented Mocha Clubs, which have been smoke-free since last October, has declined 15 per cent and 12 per cent in 4Q14 and 1Q15, respectively. We would attribute these declines almost entirely to the elimination of smoking.”
The uncertainty with Multi-Level Progressives should only be short term. Two links were recently
manipulated by a player with the DICJ, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau in Macau subsequently closing down all Multi-Level Progressives from all manufacturers in the territory pending investigation.
One manufacturer said: “This has affected around 2,000 machines which are currently switched off on Macau’s slot floors. They display signs such as out of order or coming soon which nobody wants to see. We believe new technical standards will be introduced bringing an extra layer of security to MLPs with a camera installed to capture the screen. Until they have been finalised no one is buying MLPs, which again isn’t good for anybody.”
Table gaming has even more uncertainty. One manufacturer said: “Macau introduced a system to cap the growth of its table games in 2013. The cap aims to restrict compound annual growth in the number of new live gaming tables to three percent until December 2022. Galaxy asked for 500 for Phase II and got 150. At this stage we know what the operators want but no formal requests have yet been made and so no decisions have been made. It’s left us not knowing quite how big the future market will be in terms of tables.”
Melco Crown’s Studio City is the next to open in the
“Macau introduced a system to cap the growth of its table games in 2013. The cap aims to restrict compound annual growth in the number of new live gaming tables to three percent until December 2022. Galaxy asked for 500 for Phase II and got 150. At this stage we know what the operators want but no formal requests have yet been made and so no decisions have been made. It’s left us not knowing quite how big the future market will be in terms of tables.”
third quarter of 2015. It has asked for between 400 and 500 live tables. Las Vegas Sands wants 450 gaming tables for its US$2.7bn Parisian casino resort, MGM wants 500 for MGM Cotai, as does Wynn for Wynn Palace. SJM is believed to want 700 tables for its Lisboa Palace.
Richard Huang and Stella Xing of Japanese brokerage firm Nomura summed up: “Despite signs of stabilisation, industry growth visibility remains low as it is still early days to assess whether new supply can create incremental demand, whilst various regulatory overhangs, such as the smoking ban, visa caps and table caps remain.”
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