The 39 casinos in Macau reportedly saw their aggregated gross gaming revenues for June drop by almost 97% year-on-year to just over $89.69 million due in large part to the impact of ongoing coronavirus-related travel restrictions.

According to a report from Inside Asian Gaming citing official information from the enclave’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau regulator, the June figure was far below the $2.98 billion recorded for the same 30-day period last year and means that the six-month tally now stands some 77.4% lower at only $4.22 billion.

Consecutive cuts:

Inside Asian Gaming reported that the June result moreover represented a fall of 59.4% when set alongside May’s figure of $220.97 million, which was itself some 93.2% lower compared with the $3.25 billion recorded for the same 31-day month in 2019. Casinos in Macau purportedly also recorded a comparable 96.8% reduction in aggregated gross gaming revenues for April after chalking up analogous declines of 87.8% and 79.7% for February and March respectively.

Coronavirus consequences:

As for the reasons behind these continuing diminutions and Inside Asian Gaming reported that gamblers travelling between Macau and Hong Kong remain subject to a reciprocal 14-day mandatory quarantine directive that was instituted in February so as to help the two cities counter the spread of the potentially-deadly coronavirus strain. The source detailed that this requirement had been due to expire from early next week but was recently extended by another month to August 7.

Visitation vacuum:

Although gamblers travelling into Macau from mainland China are not required to go into isolation, they are reportedly obliged to sequester themselves for two weeks upon their return. This late-March measure from officials in Guangdong Province has purportedly robbed the former Portuguese enclave of one of its main sources of holidaymakers and caused associated tourism numbers to plummet to levels not seen since the dark days of the Cold War.