Macau beats Las Vegas as the world’s top gambling destination
Official figures show that the gross revenue from the gaming sector in Macau, China at the end of the third quarter of this year exceeded those of Las Vegas by US$433 million, making the Chinese territory, the world’s biggest gaming and gambling centre.
By the estimates of leading Vegas-based leisure industry consultancy Globalysis, Macau is just ahead of the cluster of casinos on Nevada’s most famous boulevard. According to the Macau Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, gross revenues for gaming and gambling from casinos totalled some US$4.821 billion while Las Vegas casinos made US$4.388 billion in the same period.
“The recent numbers look like our estimates for 2006 will come in line. Currently, the monthly run rate for Las Vegas would put it at an annualised revenue rate of US$6.6 billion. At Macau’s current month run rate, it now exceeds that of Las Vegas strip by about US$20 million, so it looks,” says Globalysis partner, Jonathan Galaviz.
Gambling earnings have boomed in Macau since 2001, when the government ended tycoon Stanley Ho’s 40-year monopoly on casinos in the city and allowed foreign operators to move in. The result has been a rush of up to US$25 billion of mostly American cash into the once-moribund century-old local industry.
Added to that, growth has been fuelled by a similarly explosive rise in tourism from China, following the relaxation of travel restrictions from the mainland in the wake of the former Portuguese enclave’s reversion to Chinese rule in 1999. In 2005 revenues from the gaming sector totalled 44.725 billion patacas, while gambling revenues totalled 45.8 billion patacas. Macau, which has 23 casinos running 24 hours a day with a total of over 2 500 casino tables and over 5 500 slot machines, currently has seven new casino projects approved and/or under construction, all of which are said to be completed by 2010.
However Macau’s modest 23 casinos are by no means close to Las Vegas’s 200 casinos in operation. Las Vegas is staying positive in the wake of losing its title as the world’s top gambling hub. For years Las Vegas has been the gambling capital of the world and is sure not to give up that title without a fight.