Macau cuts full-year casino revenue outlook
In light of the negative impact of the ongoing global coronavirus pandemic, we have halved the city's upcoming full-year gross gaming revenue forecast. The former Portuguese enclave now expects 39 active casinos to record total gaming revenue of about $16.25 billion in 2020, down from pre-coronavirus estimates of about $32.51 billion and 55.5% from last year's final tally of $36.57 billion. As part of the budget revision earlier today, the city's casino industry was announced after total gaming revenue in February fell 87.8% year-over-year to just $388.29 million. The decline was reportedly exacerbated by the 15-day closure of all local gaming venues last month, when coronavirus-related travel restrictions between Macau and China continued. Macau's total gaming revenue for the first two months of the year is now just over $3.15 billion, down nearly 50% from the same period in 2019. Numerous industry experts have predicted that it could take up to six months for normalcy to return. In early December, the highly contagious coronavirus infection was officially known as the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) and has killed more than 9,300 people worldwide so far. Macau recorded its first official case of the disease on January 22, 10 of which have recovered, but have chronicled 16 cases so far. Moreover, the economic impact of the coronavirus disease has prompted the Macau government to release details that it expects to collect fewer annual game taxes and record a citywide deficit of about $4.87 billion in 2020. However, the updated budget says the region reportedly has about $72.46 billion in financial reserves, which consist of about $18.62 billion in 'basic' reserves and about $53.84 billion in 'extraordinary' reserves.