During the first 24 days of September this year, Macau’s gross gaming income (GGR) was calculated to be roughly MOP12 billion, which is approximately $1.49 billion, with MOP500 million, which is roughly $62.1 million daily, as pointed out by JP Morgan, an investment bank based in New York.

The super typhoon as the reason for the temporary closure of the casinos:

In compliance with the information obtained from the generated data, there was a small change for the better from week to week, as Macau was the target of a super typhoon at the beginning of this month, which further caused an emergency order for all casinos to temporarily close throughout certain hours.

JP Morgan also stated in its newest investment memorandum that only several investors appeared concerned about the approaching October Golden Week holiday period. The reason for this is that they see some standard rooms still available on online travel agency sites. But, they think it’s “almost impossible to get any reliable color on Golden Week in advance based on FIT/outside room booking situations, as holiday GGR is almost always driven more by the quality of players than the quantity, as we have been writing for many years.”

At this point in time, the research team found that more than 90% of rooms at Macau’s hotel casinos are already reserved and “sold out.” Still, few rooms are not booked on the mentioned websites of online travel agencies, but this happens more for hotels that are officially opened right now, aka during this month. Examples of such hotels are the Andaz at Galaxy Macau and the W Macau at Studio City. Speaking on this, JP Morgan commented, according to Asia Gaming Brief: “This does not worry us because it’s pretty normal to have available rooms even for the peak of holidays in the past, particularly at the OTA levels, who pre-purchased the rooms.”

Macau’s mass market to reach pre-COVID levels during October:

As the aforementioned Golden Week will last 8 days this year and not 7 as it was done in previous years, Macau’s mass market may be able to reach pre-COVID levels during the coming month, bringing the total GGR for the third quarter of 2023 back to 94% to 95%, according to the aforementioned JP Morgan. Additionally, it added: “This is the first holiday since the reopening when all the rooms are available, as opposed to limited inventory in 1H23, amid labor shortages, etc., and the number of rooms has actually grown by 15-20 percent compared to pre-COVID levels. Our checks with gaming hosts indicate a pretty upbeat sentiment, with most expecting Golden Week to yield the highest GGR since the reopening, unsurprisingly so.”

Furthermore, Macau tourism authorities predict that Macau could experience more than 100,000 visitors per day throughout the said holiday. Also, during the first 8 months of the year, the total number of tourists in Macau increased by 363.1% year-on-year to 17.6 million, and is projected that Macau will get 24 million tourists by the end of 2023.