Macau’s gaming industry continued its strong recovery following the easing of COVID-19 border restrictions, with gross gaming revenue reaching MOP$14.72 (US$1.82 billion) in April.
According to information from the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ), the April total was 450% higher than April 2022, when Macau’s GGR was MOP$2.68 billion (US$332 million).
The result was also 15.6% higher than the March 2023 GGR total of MOP$12.74 billion (US$1.58 billion), which had been the highest monthly GGR tally since January 2020.
For the first four months of 2023 combined, Macau’s GGR is up 141% year-on-year to MOP$49.36 billion (US$6.12 billion).
The change in fortunes for Macau’s casinos comes after the government announced the scrapping of almost all COVID-19 border restrictions as of 8 January 2023, including the removal of testing requirements for visitors from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. It also disposed of mandatory hotel quarantine for foreign tourists and the need to provide any negative COVID tests either prior to or upon arrival.
With visitation gradually increasing in the months since, the Macau government announced that visitor arrivals had reached 98,000 on Saturday 15 April – the highest single day tally in more than three years – although this figure was smashed only yesterday, Sunday 30 April, with the Public Security Police Force announcing a new post-COVID record of 133,911 visitor arrivals for the day.
