It is often stated that while the gaming capital of the west, Las Vegas, is dominated by non-gaming spend, the gaming capital of the east, Macau, remains a gaming-centric jurisdiction. But is this really true? Do visitors to Las Vegas really spend more on non-gaming than those visiting Macau? IAG’s Vice Chairman and CEO Andrew W Scott makes a (only slightly) tongue-in-cheek comparison by way of a “blunt instrument calculation” – with surprising results!
It is often said that non-gaming spend in Macau is negligible, with Las Vegas now being dominated by non-gaming. But is that really true?
Statistics show non-gaming in Nevada to range from about 63% to 75% of customer spend, with the lower numbers being in more regional areas and the ’burbs, and the highest number (75%) being on the Las Vegas strip. Let’s use 70/30 as a kind of blunt-instrument middle-of-the-road ratio for Las Vegas non-gaming to gaming spend.
In Macau, the stats show that, historically, non-gaming has been as little as just a few percent of total guest spend for the very gaming-orientated concessionaires, to as much as 10% for more non-gaming oriented operators such as Sands. Actually, post-COVID there has been a decided shift towards non-gaming, with around 15% non-gaming spend across the board – and that number is rising.
Comparing 70% for Las Vegas to 15% for Macau, it would be easy for the uninitiated to jump to the conclusion that there is 4.7 (that’s 70 divided by 15) times the amount of non-gaming expenditure going on in Las Vegas as there is in Macau. But that quick and dirty calculation lacks nuance.
In fact, by the end of this article, I may even have you believing that there is arguably more non-gaming spend in Macau than Las Vegas!
Factor 1: GGR disparity
Gross gaming revenue (GGR) in Las Vegas, comprising the Las Vegas Strip, Downtown and North Las Vegas, is currently running at about US$10 billion a year. Macau GGR is currently running at a touch over US$30 billion a year, three times as much.
If we consider Las Vegas non-gaming to comprise 70% of spend, and GGR at US$10 billion, that puts non-gaming spend at US$23.3 billion.
Likewise, the same calculation on Macau’s 15% non-gaming versus US$30 billion in GGR results in a non-gaming spend of US$5.3 billion.
Suddenly our “Vegas over Macau non-gaming” factor goes from 4.7x to 4.4x.
Factor 2: Visitation
Las Vegas used to get significantly more visitors than Macau, but that gap has closed a lot in the past year or two. As an aside, this makes the hotel room inventory disparity between the two cities all the more stark – Macau with just under 50,000 rooms compared to Las Vegas at just over 150,000 rooms – but that’s a story for another day.
Las Vegas still has the visitation edge, but the difference is not as much as before: the current year visitation run rate for Las Vegas is 43.1 million visitors annually compared to the Macau equivalent of 39.5 million visitors.
Dividing the US$23.3 billion in non-gaming spend in Las Vegas by its 43.1 million visitors has non-gaming spend per visitor at US$542, while the same calculation for Macau results in US$134 per visitor.
It should also be noted that Las Vegas has a much larger locals market spending on IR non-gaming than Macau does, but let’s be kind to Las Vegas and ignore that as essentially negligible in the wider calculation.
Our “Vegas over Macau non-gaming” factor now goes from 4.4x to 4.0x.
Factor 3: Length of stay
The average length of stay in Las Vegas is around 3.0 days. The equivalent metric for Macau, on the other hand, has remained stubbornly short for decades, despite the efforts of industry and government to lengthen it. The Macau Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) this year published the average length of stay of visitors for the first three quarters of 2025 combined as 1.1 days (down 0.1 days year-on-year). That includes a lot of day trippers.
Now, if we divide the non-gaming spend per visitor in Las Vegas by their average 3.0 day stay we reach a spend of US$180 per day.
Applying the same calculation to Macau has non-gaming spend per visitor per day at US$122.
Our “Vegas over Macau non-gaming” factor goes from 4.0x to 1.5x.
Factor 4: Optional twist – GDP per capita
Ever heard the expression “lies, damn lies, and statistics”? If we want to engage in a bit of statistical gymnastics to take the analysis further, we can, by factoring in the difference in GDP per capita between the two markets.
The GDP per capita for the US is around US$233 per day, but only around US$36 per day in China.
This means Las Vegas non-gaming spend per visitor per day as a percentage of daily US GDP per capita is 78%, while Macau non-gaming spend per visitor per day as a percentage of daily China GDP per capita comes out at 339%! Now our “Vegas over Macau non-gaming” factor goes from 1.5x to 0.2x. Or if you prefer, it becomes a “Macau over Vegas non-gaming” factor of 5x!
Using the above analysis, I can arguably state that non-gaming spend in Macau is five times of that in Las Vegas! Ok, that last twist using the GDP disparity is a bit dubious, but even ignoring that, it is true that the average Las Vegas visitor only spends 50% more per day on non-gaming than the average Macau visitor. Not the massive difference we are often led to believe!
