Macau casino GGR up 20% in August

The GGR tally for August might have been higher but for the disruption caused to the city late in the month by an exceptionally powerful typhoon, said several investment analysts. 

Following Typhoon Hato on August 23, some hotels and casino resorts temporarily suspended their operations, as they sustained damage and suffered power cuts and interruption to water supply.

August casino GGR growth "was nicely above recently revised consensus of +18 percent,” said a Friday memo from Grant Govertsen of brokerage Union Gaming Securities Asia. "As we noted last week in our series of on-the-ground notes post-typhoon, we believed that trends were returning to normal quite quickly and still expected a growth rate of 20-percent+ for the month,” he added.

Several brokerages mentioned the typhoon shaving anywhere between several hundred basis points (bps) and 600 bps from year-on-year growth in August GGR. Some analysts had – prior to Typhoon Hato – forecast year-on-year GGR growth of up to 25 % for August.

Banking group Morgan Stanley said in a note that notwithstanding the storm, it expected Macau GGR to "rebound sharply” in September, with "VIP to recover faster than mass”.