Casinos collected 11.8 billion patacas (1.4 billion euros) between July and September, in the so-called VIP baccarat game, compared to 12.2 billion patacas (1.4 billion euros) between April and June, the DICJ revealed on Monday.
This drop reverses the recovery of the large betting segment, whose revenues had risen 41.9 percent in the second quarter, after Macau removed all restrictions on the entry of tourists due to the covid-19 pandemic.
Even so, revenues between July and September were already higher than those recorded during 2022 (10.1 billion patacas or 1.2 billion euros), a year in which the segment was affected by the detention of the leader of the largest revenue-raising company. VIP betting in the world.
The former executive director of Suncity, Alvin Chau Cheok Wa, was sentenced in January to 18 years in prison for illicit gambling and secret society exploitation, in a case that saw the number of gambling promoter licenses issued in Macau drop from 85 to 46 .
In April, the former leader of another VIP bookmaker in Macau, Tak Chun Group, Levo Chan Weng Lin, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for crimes ranging from illegal gambling to money laundering.
The total accumulated in the VIP game in the first nine months of the year was 32.5 billion patacas (3.8 billion euros), indicated the DICJ, equivalent to 24 percent of that recorded in 2019: 135.2 billion of patacas (16 billion euros).
VIP baccarat, which before the Covid-19 pandemic represented almost half of all casino gaming revenue in the Chinese special administrative region, was left with a share of 24.1 percent in the third quarter of this year.
On the contrary, baccarat in the so-called mass market represented almost 61 percent of total gaming revenue in Macau between July and September, rising 11.6 percent compared to the previous three months, to 29.8 billion patacas (3.5 billion euros).
On January 8, after almost three years, Macau removed all restrictions on the entry of tourists from the interior of China, namely the presentation of a certificate of a negative Covid-19 test result.
With the end of restrictions, Macau received 17.6 million visitors in the first eight months of 2023, four times more than in the same period last year, plus two thirds of the value recorded between January and August 2019.
