The government of Macau has reportedly halved the city’s coming full-year aggregated gross gaming revenues forecast in light of the negative impacts of the ongoing global coronavirus pandemic.

According to a report from GGRAsia, the former Portuguese enclave now expects its 39 active casinos to record aggregated gross gaming revenues for 2020 of approximately $16.25 billion, which is down from a pre-coronavirus estimate of about $32.51 billion and would represent a 55.5% decline on last year’s finishing tally of just over $36.57 billion.

Coronavirus connection:

The projected annual figure was reportedly revealed earlier today as part of a revised budget and comes after the city’s casino industry saw combined February gaming revenues plummet by 87.8% year-on-year to only $388.29 million. This decrease was purportedly exacerbated by last month’s 15-day shutdown of all local gaming venues as well as the continuing coronavirus-related restrictions on travel between Macau and China.

Slow start:

GGRAsia reported that Macau’s aggregated gross gaming revenues for the first two months of the year now stand at just over $3.15 billion, which is almost 50% lower than for the same period in 2019, with numerous industry experts having predicted that it could now take up to six months for a semblance of normality to return.

Deadly dilemma:

First recorded in the Chinese city of Wuhan in early-December, the highly-contagious coronavirus infection is officially known as 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) and has so far killed in excess of 9,300 people around the world. Macau documented its first official case of the ailment on January 22 and has so far chronicled a further 16 sufferers although ten of these have since recovered.

Substantial stash:

GGRAsia reported that the economic effects of the coronavirus ailment moreover prompted the government of Macau to detail that it expects to collect fewer full-year gaming taxes and record a city-wide deficit for 2020 of about $4.87 billion. However, the updated budget purportedly denoted that the enclave has a financial preserve of approximately $72.46 billion comprised of some $18.62 billion in ‘basic’ reserves alongside ‘extraordinary’ fallbacks worth of almost $53.84 billion.