The 40-strong collection of casinos in Macau reportedly chalked up aggregated gross gaming revenues for May of slightly beyond $1.3 billion to take their combined five-month tally to a little over $5.3 billion.

According to a report from Inside Asian Gaming citing official information from the enclave’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau regulator, the figure for the 31-day period represented an impressive rise of 24.3% month-on-month while being a mammoth 482.2% better than the about $220.2 million recorded for the same period last year.

Pandemic problems:

Macau is home to some of the world’s largest and most famous gambling properties including the iconic Casino Grand Lisboa venue from SJM Holdings Limited and Melco Resorts and Entertainment Limited’s $3.2 billion Studio City Macau development. However, these enterprises were hit hard beginning from February of last year after local officials reacted to the coronavirus pandemic by instituting a series of severe travel restrictions and social distancing protocols.

Continuing convalescence:

Nevertheless, the result for May reportedly represented a fourth straight period of month-on-month improvements for the city’s aggregated gross gaming revenues to take the year-to-date figure some 28.7% beyond where it stood at the end of the same five months in 2020. The source detailed that this recovery comes as Macau is again beginning to welcome an increasing number of tourists from mainland China including a substantial surge over the course of the territory’s recent five-day Labour Day holiday.

Transformative travel:

This public celebration began from May 1 with the Public Security Police Force of Macau reportedly explaining that it had recorded an associated swell of 40% month-on-month in terms of average daily inbound visitors to approximately 36,400. This body purportedly moreover disclosed that the first day of the holiday saw roughly 45,000 people enter the former Portuguese enclave, which had represented the highest such tally since the pre-coronavirus days of last year.

Significant slump:

The many casinos in Macau ended last year with aggregated annual gross gaming revenues in the region of $7.5 billion, which equated to a decline of 79.3% when compared with 2019’s finishing tally of $36.6 billion. This coronavirus-induced recession was perhaps most stark in the sixth month of that year as combined receipts crashed by 97% year-on-year to a mere $89.6 million to take the year-to-date figure down by 77.4% to a little beyond $4.2 billion.

Although these comparative declines in aggregated gross gaming revenues continued into 2021, Macau’s casinos welcomed a boost of 135.6% year-on-year for February to $914.9 million. This long-awaited revival was then given a massive boost in April as monthly receipts improved by well over 58% to exceed the $1 billion mark for the first time since January of 2020.