Despite being shut for two days due to Typhoon Mangkhut, the over 30 casinos in Macau still reportedly managed to post a 2.8% increase year-on-year in aggregated gross gaming revenues for September to $2.72 billion.

Nine-month figure improves:

According to a report from GGRAsia citing official information released by the city’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, the latest result means that Macau has seen its aggregated gross gaming revenues for the first nine month of 2018 climb by some 15.9% year-on-year to reach over $27.79 billion.

Storm led to casino closures:

The strongest storm to hit the region since 1983, Typhoon Mangkhut struck Macau over the weekend of September 15 and led authorities to take the unprecedented step of ordering all of the city’s casinos to shut for two days. However, GGRAsia reported that the industry quickly recovered as most gaming operations were up and running again by the morning of September 17.

Hong Kong damage aggravated impact:

Grant Govertsen from Union Gaming Securities Asia Limited  told GGRAsia that the storm has caused Macau’s aggregated gross gaming revenues for September to fall below previously submitted estimates by approximately 6%. He explained that this drop had been exacerbated by the fact that Typhoon Mangkhut had struck over a weekend and had prevented many mainland tourists from visiting the city by journeying through nearby Hong Kong.

Govertsen to GGRAsia…

“The typhoon and post-typhoon impact exceeded our initial expectations, which we attribute in part to a much more severe impact to Hong Kong while Macau was relatively spared.”

Monthly result ‘better than feared’:

For their part, Danny Valoy and Carlo Santarelli from Deutsche Bank Securities Incorporated reportedly detailed that the aggregated gross gaming revenues figure for September had been ‘in line with our forecast’ although ‘slightly better than feared.’