It rose about 234% year-over-year to $554.49 million despite the disruption caused by a mild outbreak of the coronavirus in neighboring China.
Official information from the Gaming Inspection Coordinating Bureau regulator showed the 31-day period’s figures improved for the seventh consecutive month from a year earlier, while the eight-month related tally for previous Portuguese residences rose 70.1% to about $7.72 billion. The source elaborated that all of this came after the city’s coronavirus-affected 2020 gross annual gaming revenue dropped 79.3% to about $7.54 billion.
Macau has more than 40 casinos, including SJM Holdings Limited’S Iconic Casino Grand Lisboa Event Hall and Melco Resorts and Entertainment Limited’s much larger Studio City Macau development. Despite the year-over-year increase in August, the final results equate to a nearly 47.4% drop compared with the final tally of just over $1.05 billion in July and the lowest since about $276 million in September last year, the sources said.
The coronavirus outbreak in China in June was the introduction of a series of travel safety measures that required arrivals from multiple mainland cities to quarantine for at least two weeks. Since then, the region has reportedly launched a massive inspection of residents early last month after recording its first positive case in more than a year, and has since been linked to a family of four who crossed the border to visit friends in the nearby metropolitan city of Zhuhai.
As a result, Offensive has not found any new cases of coronavirus, but it has included strict provisions to tighten entry restrictions for mainland tourists and shorten the validity of required negative infection tests from seven days to 48 hours. The sources also explained that most of these controls have been lifted, helping the territory’s daily cross-border visit rate once again to top an impressive 21,000.
Macau’s August results may have reportedly been aided by the recent premiere of a $5 billion Grand Lisboa Palace development from local operator SJM Holdings Limited. The massive facility has been built more than seven years and finally debuted on July 30 featuring a 290,000-square-foot casino that can hold 1,200 slots in addition to 500 game tables.