The magical HK$775 million average daily table revenue figure is back. 

As we’ve pointed out in the past, the HK$775 number may be a placeholder for incomplete data.  If the HK$775 million for the last 7 days is the true number, that would imply revenues have slowed more than we expected.  Our full month GGR forecast would fall to +13-19% YoY growth from +19-25%.  We are hearing anecdotally that VIP hold is low, particularly at Wynn Macau. 

However, we’ve seen the placeholder story before so next week’s data is likely to play catch up.   Here is what we wrote in our June 25th, 2013 post regarding the HK$775 million placeholder:

“…average daily table revenues for Macau came in at HK$775 million for last week.  Hmmm, where have we seen that number before?  Oh yeah, 14 times over the past 105 weeks.  If you’re saying to yourself, “that’s next to impossible”, well, it gets even more unlikely.  The weekly revenues released each of those 14x divides to a daily number of exactly HK$775,000,000 when carried out to the full decimals. So what is happening?  Clearly, HK$775 million is a placeholder, probably because not all the data came in to the government in time.  Statistically, that means that the following week’s data is likely to be volatile since it will be a catch up.  We calculate a standard deviation that is 40% higher for the week following a HK$775 million week than for the average week over the same period.”

So there you have it.  We’ll have to wait and see.  Here is the month to date data.

MACAU WEEKLY PLACEHOLDER REEMERGES? - mm2

MACAU WEEKLY PLACEHOLDER REEMERGES? - mm1