October casino GGR follows downward trend, dips 10pct y-o-y to US$2.68bln: Macau govt

Macau casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) fell 10.0 percent year-on-year in October, tallying MOP21.68 billion (US$2.68 billion), according to data released on Sunday by the city’s regulator, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ). It was the fifth consecutive month of year-on-year GGR decline, but the highest such so far this year. The latest year-on-year decline occurred in a month that included a Golden Week holiday on the Chinese mainland, typically a peak demand time for tourism to Macau. But October GGR was nonetheless up 20.0 percent month-on-month, versus the just over MOP18.06 billion achieved in September. The October data took GGR for the first 10 months of 2026 to MOP208.80 billion, a year-on-year improvement of 1.6 percent. On October 10, Macau’s Chief Executive, Sam Hou Fai, had said GGR performance for October was likely to be crucial regarding whether Macau GGR would be able to meet the government’s 2026 target figure of MOP236 billion. In an October 17 note, brokerage China International Capital Corporation Hong Kong Securities Ltd (CICC) said there was “no clear near-term inflection point” in either Macau GGR or sector profitability. The institution added that investors might have underestimated the weakness in gaming demand. Banking group UBS also said in a recent memo that analysts’ consensus on Macau GGR for October was “challenging”. That was because the daily GGR run-rate moderated from approximately MOP1.0 billion during the first four days of the October Golden Week holiday period. Nonetheless, CreditSights said in a recent memo that Macau could still achieve the government’s MOP236-billion casino GGR target for 2026 . The research firm noted that Macau would require average monthly GGR of MOP16.3 billion in the fourth quarter to reach the full-year target.