Lower revenues in Macau in the last three months

The regulatory authority of Macao has just published figures of the local market of gambling for the month of August.
These tell us that revenues from the land-based casinos have dropped in the last three months, and that Chinese players are spending less money.
The decline in turnover of casinos in the former Portuguese colony began in June with a decrease of 3.7%.
This is the first time in five years that revenues decreased for Macau, and it continued in July and August.
You can read more about this problem later in this article.

The decline is higher than expected

The figures that were recently published by the regulatory authority of Macau are lower than what analysts initially expected.
They predicted a decline of the revenues of 2%, whereas the actual decrease was 6.1%.
Some experts believe that these poor results are likely to continue in September and may even persist throughout the fourth quarter of the year 2014.
Accordingly, the price of shares of the groups operating in the market for land-based casinos in Macau recorded a decline as well.
The establishments are also struggling with the current employee strike, as employees demand higher salaries.

An anti-corruption campaign and an economy that slows down

To explain this decline in revenues, observers point to the wealthy VIP players from the Chinese mainland.
Not to attract attention with the new anti-corruption laws in Macau, the rich Chinese are now less likely to spend a fortune at the gaming tables in Macau.
The Communist Party also announced several months ago, that the wave of the most intense repression of the past 60 years is due to issues of corruption and lavish spending.
This seems to have diminished the enthusiasm of many nationals who have played more moderately in the last three months.
We must also recognize that the second largest economy in the world has had some difficulties recently, and the economy slowed down significantly.
For example, since July the real estate market is declining in almost all cities.
All these reasons may explain the drop in revenues from casinos in Macau.
However, the former Portuguese colony is still far ahead of Singapore and Las Vegas, and remains the largest and most popular city for gambling in the whole world.