The news agency LUSA is reporting May total gaming revenues may come in at 17-18bn MOP. We think business slowed the last week so the low end of that range is more likely.
We should be getting the Macau property numbers for the month of May next week but LUSA is already reporting that total gaming revenues could be in the range of 17-18 billion MOP. We think LUSA is basing that projection on the results through the first three weeks which we already reported were very strong in our 5/25/10 post “WHITE HOT MACAU”. However, our sources indicated that business has slowed over the past week. We think 16.5-17 billion MOP is probably the right range. That still represents approximately 90% growth.
We continue to believe that MPEL and Wynn gained market share sequentially, mostly at the expense of LVS. Apparently, Wynn’s hold percentage came off very high levels in the 2nd half of the month so market share will not be as high as the 18% it had mid-month.
The explosive growth will once again be fueled by the VIP segment. One possible explanation for at least part of the strong growth came to light recently. Apparently, certain mainland visa restrictions from the Zhuhai Province were lifted recently. This specific restriction impacted junket players but now mid and high rollers face no restrictions. This favorably impacted May and likely will continue to do so in future months.
