Macau casino revenue fell for the 17th month in a row in October. Nevertheless, this decline has been less bad than some previous months and thus gave hope to the world’s largest gambling centre that the crisis is starting to ease.

This information was provided by the Macau’s Gaming and Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ), which reported revenue drop of 28.4% y-o-y to MOP 20.1 billion or around $2.5 billion in October. When it comes to year-to-date numbers, the drop is higher 35.5% to MOP 176 billion. However, this decline was at the slowest pace since January, when the noted drop was 17.4%. Starting from February, the average falling rate was about 28% per month.

Macau’s October revenue total was MOP 3 billion more than September’s, plus the rate of decline improved from the 33% noted in September.

This generally positive news resulted with a growth of casino shares. Hence, MGM China Holdings Limited shares grew for 2.5%, Wynn Macau Limited noted a 3.2% jump of shares, while Sands China Limited’s shares rose for 1.1%.

Nonetheless, it can’t be ignored that October is traditionally a stronger month than the rest because of the Golden Week holiday, when a huge number of Chinese tourists head to the gambling heaven. This year the number of mainland visitors went up for 7.1%, but that’s still worse than the 17.1% recorded the same period in 2014. As a result, the gaming revenue generated during the Golden Week noted a fall of 28% y-o-y.

Macau has been struggling to keep alive its gaming industry ever since the Chinese government’s crackdown on corruption. This event, alongside with the slow Chinese economy, prompted China’s high rollers to keep a low profile and avoid Macau’s casinos.